The Placeholder Text Choice: Lorem Ipsum vs. Custom
When designing interfaces and layouts, choosing between Lorem Ipsum and custom placeholder text seems simple but has significant implications. Lorem Ipsum has dominated the design world for centuries, yet modern design practices increasingly favor contextual, realistic placeholder text. Understanding the trade-offs helps you choose the approach that best serves your project.
This choice isn't about right or wrong—it's about different tools for different situations. Lorem Ipsum excels at one job: providing neutral, layout-focused placeholder content. Custom placeholder text excels at different situations where context and realism matter. The best approach often uses both strategically within the same project.
Lorem Ipsum: The Neutral Approach
Lorem Ipsum is standardized, immediately recognizable as placeholder text, and completely divorced from meaning. Since the 1500s, designers have used variations of this Latin text to visualize layouts without content distraction. Its ubiquity means clients instantly understand they're viewing a mockup, not final design.
The fundamental advantage of Lorem Ipsum is semantic neutrality. Unlike real text, Lorem Ipsum has no emotional or contextual meaning. Clients can't accidentally react to the placeholder text itself. Feedback stays focused on design, layout, typography, and user experience rather than content critique.
Lorem Ipsum's consistency is valuable in design systems. Every designer using Lorem Ipsum generates similar placeholder content, making it easy to compare mockups, understand design intent, and maintain focus on structural elements. This consistency supports design reviews and collaborative feedback.
The visual properties of Lorem Ipsum are well-understood. Designers know how Lorem Ipsum flows, how it wraps, and how it behaves at different sizes. This predictability helps estimate how layouts will function without needing actual content.
However, Lorem Ipsum's divorced-from-reality nature creates problems in some contexts. Clients viewing Lorem Ipsum sometimes struggle to visualize the final product. An interface full of Latin text feels abstract and disconnected from actual usage. Stakeholders might question design decisions without understanding the content context.
Lorem Ipsum also fails to test realistic content scenarios. If your actual content includes much longer words, uses different capitalization, or has different character densities, the Lorem Ipsum layout might not accommodate it properly. Technical issues emerge only when real content is introduced.
Custom Placeholder Text: The Contextual Approach
Custom placeholder text uses realistic, contextual content that matches the final product's intended purpose. An e-commerce site shows placeholder product names and descriptions. A fitness app shows exercise names and instructions. A news site shows headline-like placeholder copy.
The primary advantage of custom placeholder text is improved client visualization. When stakeholders see realistic content in realistic context, they understand the final product better. This leads to better feedback and fewer surprises when actual content is introduced.
Custom placeholder text enables better user experience testing. If you're designing an e-commerce product listing with placeholder content like "Premium leather wallet with multiple card slots," you're testing the layout with realistic content characteristics. Real feedback on readability and design appropriateness emerges.
Using realistic content helps identify content strategy issues early. You might discover that realistic product names are too long for your design, or that descriptions need more space than allocated. Addressing these issues during design is far cheaper than redesigning in production.
Custom placeholder text helps stakeholders feel ownership and investment in the project. Seeing their industry reflected in placeholders makes the project feel more real and approachable. This psychological benefit shouldn't be underestimated.
However, custom placeholder text introduces risks. Clients might focus feedback on content quality rather than design. "I don't like how that product is described" shifts the conversation from design to content strategy.
Custom placeholder text requires effort to create. You need to understand the client's business, product types, and messaging to create appropriate placeholders. Lorem Ipsum requires no thinking—it's instantly available.
Creating good custom placeholder text at scale is difficult. A website might need hundreds of unique placeholder entries. Creating realistic, varied custom content for all is time-consuming. Lorem Ipsum scales trivially.
Comparing Key Dimensions
Feedback Focus: Lorem Ipsum keeps feedback on design; custom text risks feedback on content. If you want pure design critique, Lorem Ipsum is better. If you want holistic product feedback, custom text works better.
Stakeholder Engagement: Custom text helps stakeholders visualize the final product; Lorem Ipsum keeps it abstract. For clients needing confidence and buy-in, custom text is stronger.
Content Strategy Testing: Custom text reveals content requirements; Lorem Ipsum hides them. If you need to validate content strategies, custom text is essential.
Design Review Efficiency: Lorem Ipsum focuses reviews on design; custom text risks content-focused feedback. For fast design iteration, Lorem Ipsum is more efficient.
Technical Accuracy: Custom text at realistic lengths tests layout properly; Lorem Ipsum might hide overflow issues. For design that must accommodate real content, custom text is more honest.
Scalability: Lorem Ipsum is trivial to generate; custom text requires manual creation. For large projects, Lorem Ipsum saves enormous time.
Industry Relevance: Custom text feels more professional to stakeholders; Lorem Ipsum feels generic. For high-stakes presentations, custom text impresses.
Design Evolution: Lorem Ipsum is static; custom text can evolve as content strategy evolves. For iterative design processes, custom text provides better alignment.
Hybrid Approaches
Many professional design teams use both approaches strategically:
Phase-based approach: Use Lorem Ipsum in early wireframes and conceptual mockups to focus on structure. Switch to custom placeholder text in higher-fidelity mockups when design is stabilizing.
Element-based approach: Use Lorem Ipsum for long-form content (articles, descriptions), use custom text for interface elements (buttons, navigation, labels). This balances clarity with focus.
Audience-based approach: Use Lorem Ipsum for internal design reviews among designers. Switch to custom text for client presentations and stakeholder feedback. This optimizes for each audience's needs.
Content-dependent approach: For content-critical elements (headlines, calls-to-action, legal text), use real or realistic content from the beginning. For layout-focused content (body text, filler content), use Lorem Ipsum.
Iteration-based approach: Use custom placeholder text for final mockups you'll present to clients. Use Lorem Ipsum for rapid iterations and A/B testing during design exploration.
Contextual Considerations
Project Type: Branding and marketing sites benefit from custom, on-brand placeholder text. Technical and enterprise applications often work fine with Lorem Ipsum since content is secondary to functionality.
Stakeholder Sophistication: Clients experienced with design understand Lorem Ipsum conventions and focus feedback appropriately. Less design-savvy clients benefit from custom, realistic text.
Project Timeline: Time-constrained projects benefit from Lorem Ipsum's speed. Projects with longer timelines can invest in custom placeholder text creation.
Content Availability: If final content exists, use it. If content will be created later, choose between Lorem Ipsum (neutral) and custom placeholders (contextual).
Design Complexity: Simple, layout-focused designs work fine with Lorem Ipsum. Complex interfaces with many interactive states benefit from realistic content.
Client Relationship: For trusted clients with strong design understanding, Lorem Ipsum is fine. For newer clients or those less familiar with design processes, custom text builds confidence.
Creating Effective Custom Placeholder Text
If you choose custom placeholder text, follow these principles:
Make it realistically detailed. Don't use "Lorem ipsum" shortened to realistic length. Use actual descriptive text: "Weather-resistant smartwatch with heart rate monitor and GPS tracking."
Vary the length to test responsiveness. Include some short and some long examples. If most product names are under 30 characters but a few are over 100, include both in placeholders.
Make it industry-appropriate. Use vocabulary, terminology, and style from the actual industry. For healthcare, use medical terminology appropriately. For fashion, use fashion-relevant language.
Maintain consistency within content type. All product names should follow similar conventions. All descriptions should have similar structure. This consistency helps evaluate design against expected content variations.
Include edge cases. Include unusually long entries, entries with unusual characters, numbers, and special formatting to stress-test the design.
Document your assumptions. Note what you assumed about content characteristics that might not hold for actual content. "This assumes product descriptions are 50-150 characters."
When to Avoid Custom Placeholder Text
Don't create custom placeholder text if it will distract from design feedback. For early-stage mockups where you're primarily evaluating layout, Lorem Ipsum is appropriate.
Avoid custom text if you're unsure about content strategy. You might create placeholder text that doesn't reflect actual content requirements, wasting effort and creating false confidence.
Don't use custom placeholder text if it will encourage scope creep. Detailed, realistic placeholder text sometimes prompts stakeholders to request content modifications, expanding the project beyond intended scope.
Avoid custom text if it will slow down your design process unacceptably. If creating custom placeholders takes hours while Lorem Ipsum takes minutes, the time cost might not be justified.
Practical Workflow Integration
Integrate placeholder text choice into your design workflow deliberately:
Phase 1 (Exploration): Use Lorem Ipsum for rapid wireframing and exploration. Focus is on layout and structure.
Phase 2 (Refinement): Introduce custom placeholder text for more detailed mockups. Evaluate design against realistic content.
Phase 3 (Presentation): Use custom placeholder text with stakeholders to demonstrate the final vision.
Phase 4 (Implementation): Replace placeholder text with real content, using the design that was validated with realistic placeholders.
Conclusion
Neither Lorem Ipsum nor custom placeholder text is universally superior. Lorem Ipsum excels when design and layout are the focus, providing neutral, scalable placeholder content. Custom placeholder text excels when stakeholder visualization and content strategy validation matter, providing realistic context and professional polish.
The most effective approach uses both strategically. Start with Lorem Ipsum for fast design iteration, then transition to custom placeholder text for polished mockups and client presentations. This combination captures the benefits of both approaches while minimizing their drawbacks. Choose based on your project's specific needs, timeline, and stakeholder sophistication.
