Shane Bell

I realised today at work that very few people have seen Lorem Ipsum before so I figured I'd share it with you.

"Lorem Ipsum" is a grouping of nonsense words used a lot by publishing and graphic design folk when presenting mock-ups of their designs. For example, if you're designing a new web site (as I was doing today) but the content for a particular page is not quite ready yet, then you can fill the blanks with something like this...

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

The theory is that it resembles real text, but doesn't distract you with real words which you might be tempted to read when you're actually supposed to be looking at the design. In practise this often doesn't quite work. If someone hasn't seen Lorem Ipsum used before then chances are they'll start reading the text trying to decipher some hidden meaning, thus completely distracting them from the design.

Alas, it can still be useful. It's better than filling in blanks with some dribble like this...

Text goes here...blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah.

There are some great web pages that will generate pages of Lorem Ipsum text for you next time you need some.