What is Lorem Ipsum and why do designers use it?

If you have ever worked on a website mockup, a print layout, or a UI prototype, you have almost certainly encountered Lorem Ipsum. That block of scrambled Latin-looking text that fills empty spaces where real content will eventually go. It is so ubiquitous that most people never stop to ask what it actually is — or where it came from.

Where does Lorem Ipsum come from?

Lorem Ipsum is derived from a work by the Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero, written in 45 BC. The original text is called De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum — roughly translated as "On the Ends of Good and Evil" — a philosophical treatise on the theory of ethics.

The standard Lorem Ipsum passage begins with the words "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…" which are a scrambled, altered excerpt from section 1.10.32 of Cicero's work. The original Latin reads: "Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet…" — meaning "Nor is there anyone who loves, pursues or desires pain itself because it is pain…"

The text was first used as placeholder copy by typesetters in the 1500s, who scrambled a passage of Cicero to create a type specimen book. It has remained the industry standard placeholder text ever since — surviving the printing press, desktop publishing, and the digital age.

Why do designers use it?

The reason is straightforward: real text distracts from design feedback. When a client or reviewer sees real words — especially meaningful ones — they focus on the content rather than the layout, typography, and visual hierarchy. They start editing the copy instead of evaluating the design.

Lorem Ipsum solves this by filling space with text that looks realistic (it has a natural distribution of letters and word lengths) but carries no meaning anyone is likely to read carefully. This keeps the focus on:

• How the layout responds to different amounts of text
• Whether the typography is legible and well-spaced
• How whitespace, columns, and grids interact
• The visual rhythm of the page as a whole

Why does it look like Latin?

Because it is Latin — or a scrambled version of it. The words are real Latin words from Cicero, just rearranged and altered so that the passage does not make grammatical or philosophical sense. This is intentional: the goal is to produce text that looks like natural language without being readable as such.

The letter frequency distribution in Lorem Ipsum closely mimics that of English, which is why it fills space so naturally in English-language designs. If you used truly random characters, the result would look obviously artificial and draw attention to itself.

Is Lorem Ipsum always appropriate?

Not always. There are cases where real placeholder content serves better:

• User testing — participants should interact with realistic content to produce useful feedback
• Content-first design — when the content structure drives layout decisions, real content is essential
• Localisation testing — Lorem Ipsum does not reveal how designs handle right-to-left languages or long German compound words
• Accessibility reviews — screen readers and keyboard navigation tests need real, structured content