The what and why of Lorem Ipsum

Starting with the what, of course, as ‘Lorem Ipsum’ feels like a weird ancient term from years gone by. Lorem Ipsum is placesetting text. We use it on our mockups to indicatively show where a client may wish to include text within a design. It could be anything from headers to paragraphs and pages, but essentially, it’s just all fake text that is hard to read. By design, it is all mumbo jumbo and should make close to no sense whatsoever.

Why should it be hard to read?

Hard to read, why yes, that part is quite important. Especially at a stage where real content is unknown, it helps to see what a finished product might look like. At this point, reading ‘content content content’ or some other text in your native language can simply be offputting, and quite distracting. What the client can gain from seeing this, however, is not that the content is non-existent at this point (they’ll already know this) but approximately how much text we might be trying to fill a space with. 

If I’m hoping for three lines of text, they’ll envisage this quite quickly, and later produce content to suit that space, for example:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas pharetra, diam et accumsan convallis, erat nisi placerat ante, eget porttitor leo sapien condimentum erat. Donec nec sagittis urna, eu placerat ante. Nunc vitae gravida lectus. Pellentesque pharetra, risus non pharetra facilisis, odio 

There are other types of ipsum out there

I don’t tend to use them, but many versions of Lorem Ipsum exist that will perform a similar task to the original. You will, however, be able to read the illogical sentences that lack good structure and you may well find them distracting. Many are, however, entertaining – so I’ll introduce a couple that you may/not have come across:

Melbourne Ipsum

When in Melbourne, be like the locals and talk sport all day long then cycle to the rooftop cinema. Throw a few recognisable suburbs and street names along with a beverage of choice and you’re pretty much here. You can find it here.

Dandenong the australian open, middle-aged lycra clad cyclists rooftop cinema pellegrini’s richmond tigers the saints, swanston moomba flemington racecourse fairy penguins a macaron connoisseur

Bogan Ipsum

If ‘yer wanna fill ya paragraphs with a gutful of Aussie slang, look no further. Add this to your tucker bag and you’ll have fair dinkum text for your mad as clients. You little ripper, you can get your hands on this freebie is available here.

He hasn’t got a booze mate she’ll be right bloke. As cross as a barbie piece of piss stands out like a rip snorter. He hasn’t got a shonky bloody built like a trackies. As busy as a mates no worries stands out.

Filllerama

If you’d rather see your fake paragraphs filled with quotes from TV shows, this is a a nice option. They offer Arrested Development, Dexter, Doctor Who, Monty Python, Star Wars, The Simpsons and Futurama quotes that can be formatted as text or even with HTML tags ready for the web. Find a show you like here and use its text for your mockups.

Now, when you do this without getting punched in the chest, you’ll have more fun. That’s why you always leave a note! Army had half a day. It’s a hug, Michael. I’m hugging you.

Coffee Ipsum

For those yet to have their coffee, get your caffeine fix along with some frothed milk. Get it formatted as paragraphs for the web or straight up text. Get your coffee hit here.

Doppio robust grounds mocha mazagran whipped frappuccino. Redeye, acerbic french press, cortado and white macchiato whipped carajillo. Galão whipped filter, cappuccino roast, half and half

Hipster Ipsum

For the inner hipster in you, get your ethically good drink in the latest trendy suburb and use fake text like the following. Go get your hipster ipsum on.

Health goth ethical craft beer, green juice 8-bit hashtag chartreuse offal listicle cardigan artisan. Williamsburg actually authentic, brunch fanny pack everyday carry tote bag tumblr craft beer mlkshk

Cat Ipsum

While cats aren’t my thing, they are for many people – run around in circles or cats sitting on your keyboard style action is on offer here.

Play riveting piece on synthesizer keyboard. Thinking longingly about tuna brine chase the pig around the house. Knock over christmas tree damn that dog yet sniff other cat’s butt and hang jaw half open

Don’t fear the non-sensical text

When you receive a graphic or web design mockup from us, don’t fear the text that doesn’t make sense – it’s there to help us, help you get work designed that looks great and kicks goals for your business. As a design progresses, the mythical text is replaced by the words that best represent your business, and you knew approximately how many words to write for us.