In 1980s New Digital age introduced ‘Lorem Ipsum’ when it developed the older typography for using in Page Maker’s graphics and its other word processing templates.
It is considered to be a place holder text for those websites, graphic designs were original text is not available. It helps in increasing the graphic aesthetics of any particular document where the actual text should be and it is not available.
When any web developer develops a site or graphic design designs any artwork, they use this text as filler that looks like real text. Later when the text is available it is replaced with the original text. There are other terms in which it is known and they are dummy text, greeked text, blind text, mock content, placeholder text and filler text.
For a graphic designer it’s the style of the text that matters, not the meaning of it, but it too has an interesting origin.
Origin of Lorem Ipsum
The origin of Lorem Ipsum is believed to be dated back to time when Cicero was considered among the best Roman translator, linguist and philosopher. It is just not a text that came out of nothing. It was written by Cicero 2000 years ago. It is extracted from a book written during 45 BC by Cicero named ‘de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum.’
The full text is translated into English by Richard McClintock, who was a Latin professor in Virginia during the year 1914. There is no such specific meaning to the text that makes it clear that when it was written by Cicero way back in 45 BC he did not had any idea about the fact that how this text will be used in future!
Use in Graphic Design
It was during late 1500s when ‘Lorem Ipsum’ was first used by some unknown printer. He scrambled the Latin passage and used it for making the type of some specimen book. It was since then the journey of ‘Lorem Ipsum’ as a dummy text started. During 1960s it was used as dummy text for the Letraset sheets and then it was used in DTP software, Page Maker.
While designing a graphic layout, the graphic designer inserts this Latin dummy text in absence of real text. It makes the design visually appealing to the clients. This text is used instead of inserting something like content here and content there is the flow of the letters in this text. The flow of letter makes the design look real even while the actual text is missing. Here, the main motto of the designers is to highlight the aesthetics of the design and not the meaning of the text that is inserted there.
The best part of this Latin passage is that although almost everything has changed with time, but this passage has been in use for about five centuries now. Now with technological advancement there are tools that allow generating exact amount of the passage as required in the design or website!
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