Design Placeholder Text
Why Lorem Ipsum Is Hurting Your Designs
Lorem ipsum has been the default placeholder text in design for decades. But using meaningless Latin filler in your mockups creates a false sense of completion — layouts that look done but break with real content. Claude Ipsum generates AI-powered placeholder text that actually tests your designs.
3 min read
The Hidden Cost of Lorem Ipsum in Design
Lorem ipsum feels harmless. It's just placeholder text — a temporary stand-in until real copy arrives. But placeholder text is never neutral. The text in your designs shapes the design itself.
When every headline is "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet," every headline looks like it works. When every description is a uniform block of Latin, every card component looks balanced. But real content isn't uniform, and layouts built on lorem ipsum assumptions regularly fail.
How Lorem Ipsum Misleads Designers
False Content Parity
Lorem ipsum makes all text elements look roughly the same length. In reality, a product name might be 3 words or 12. A user bio might be one sentence or three paragraphs. Lorem ipsum hides this variability.
Missing Tone and Voice
Your design's typography, spacing, and hierarchy should support the content's tone. But lorem ipsum has no tone. You can't tell if your serious healthcare app "feels" right when the content is meaningless Latin.
Broken Handoffs
When developers replace lorem ipsum with real content, layouts break. Text overflows containers, buttons wrap awkwardly, and cards become uneven. These are problems your design should have caught.
Stakeholder Confusion
Clients and stakeholders see lorem ipsum and mentally check out. They can't evaluate whether the design serves the content because the content is nonsense.
What Better Placeholder Text Looks Like
In an E-Commerce Design
Instead of latin filler, your product cards show: "Wireless noise-canceling headphones. 40-hour battery life, premium comfort fit." Now you can see if your card layout handles a two-line description.
In a Healthcare Design
Instead of gibberish, your appointment card shows: "Dr. Maria Santos, MD — Internal Medicine. Next available: March 12 at 10:15 AM." Now you can evaluate whether your typography hierarchy works with real medical content.
In a SaaS Dashboard
Instead of placeholder text, your dashboard widget shows: "Team velocity increased 18% this sprint. 23 of 27 stories completed." Now you can see if your data visualization layout supports real metrics.
The Content-First Design Approach
The best design teams practice content-first design — structuring layouts around realistic content patterns rather than filling in content after the visual design is "done."
AI-generated placeholder text makes content-first design practical:
- Start with context — define your industry, audience, and content type
- Generate realistic copy — use AI to create placeholder text that matches real patterns
- Design around content — build layouts that accommodate real content variability
- Test edge cases — generate long, short, and unusual content to stress-test components
- Iterate with confidence — know that your design works with realistic content
Replace Lorem Ipsum Today
Claude Ipsum is a free Figma plugin that generates AI-powered placeholder text. It replaces generic lorem ipsum with contextual, industry-specific copy that actually tests your designs.
Install it from the Figma Community and stop designing around Latin filler.