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February 08, 2006
Free Lorem Ipsum!
For hundreds of years, publishers and designers have used a passage of Latin words known as lorem ipsum (or lipsum) as placeholder text when showing an early version of a designed publication, website or presentation. The idea is that real text is too distracting—people can’t ignore the meaning of actual words—so “dummy text” allows reviewers to focus on the design.
Last week, I realized that Lorem (as I like to call her) needs an extreme makeover. The gal has let herself go. She’s simply too old-fashioned and dowdy-looking to play the important role required of her. We need sample text that’s lighter, more accessible, and more representative of what appeals to today’s audiences.
Here’s what Lorem usually looks like today:
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.
Even if this were in a familiar language, who would read it? It looks like a big gray mass of text, with long words and complex sentences, so much so that Microsoft Word (which apparently can read any language, even if it’s fictional) evaluates it at the 12th grade reading level.
Why should anyone care? After all, lorem ipsum is not meant to be seen by anyone but the people working on and approving a design. If the text is dense, what difference does it make?
I think it matters because we communicators constantly need to educate our stakeholders about what good communication looks like. We’re always battling the forces that want to convey too much information in ways that are too complex and inaccessible. Even our mock-ups need to practice what we preach: simple concepts clearly conveyed in ways that respect our audience’s time and attention.
Help Lorem find a new look! (If you’d like to see my proposed post-makeover version of Lorem, send me an e-mail and I’ll share it with you.)
And for more on Lorem’s origins and history, visit www.lipsum.com or www.wikipedia.org
Posted by Alison Davis at February 8, 2006 01:07 PM
Comments
I'd love to see the new Lorem!
Posted by: Amy Hamilton at February 9, 2006 01:49 PM