Insights & Inspirations

Lorem ipsum, or lipsum  as it is sometimes known, is dummy text used in laying out print, graphic or web designs. The passage is attributed to an unknown typesetter in the 15th century who is thought to have scrambled parts of Cicero’s De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum  for use in a type specimen book

The passage experienced a surge in popularity during the 1960s when Letraset used it on their dry-transfer sheets, and again during the 90s as desktop publishers bundled the text with their software. Today it’s seen all around the web; on templates, websites, and stock designs.  own, or read on for the authoritative history of lorem ipsum.

Until recently, the prevailing view assumed lorem ipsum  was born as a nonsense text. “It’s not Latin, though it looks like it, and it actually says nothing,” Before & After  magazine “Its ‘words’ loosely approximate the frequency with which letters occur in English, which is why at a glance it looks pretty real.”

The placeholder text, beginning with the line “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit”, looks like Latin because in its youth, centuries ago, it was Latin. Richard McClintock, a Latin scholar from Hampden-Sydney College, is credited with discovering the source behind the ubiquitous filler text. In seeing a sample of lorem ipsum, his interest was piqued by consectetur —a genuine, albeit rare, Latin word. Consulting a Latin dictionary led McClintock to a passage from De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum

McClintock’s eye for detail certainly helped narrow the whereabouts of lorem ipsum’s  origin, however, the “how and when” still remain something of a mystery, with competing theories and timelines.