7 Alternatives to Lorem Ipsum for Your Design Projects

Looking for alternatives to Lorem Ipsum? When demonstrating the layout or graphic elements of a presentation, it’s important for the text to take a backseat in the audience’s minds. For presenters, this is accomplished by incorporating Lorem Ipsum, a filler text that naturally avoids serving as a distraction by being comprised of gibberish that is largely impossible to be distracted by.

To get an idea of what Lorem Ipsum looks like, here is the first sentence of the standard Lorem Ipsum passage — used since the 1500s:

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.”

Intentional incoherence while still abiding by a conventional grammatical structure makes Lorem Ipsum a very effective choice for showcasing text in a visual presentation when the text is meant to take a backseat to the visuals in the audience’s minds.

Still, traditional Lorem Ipsum can become tiring and all too familiar for some. Recently, some sweet alternatives to Lorem Ipsum have emerged that you can use in your next visual presentation:

1. Gangsta Lorem Ipsum

If your office is fond of using hip-hop lingo, like words ending in -izzle or phrases like “funky fresh,” then they may get a kick out of Gangsta Lorem Ipsum, which adds a charismatic flair to the traditional usage.

2. Bacon Ipsum

A clever presentation idea could be to bring bacon into your presentation as a treat for the audience, especially if it’s breakfast time. Remind them of your thoughtfulness by incorporating Bacon Ipsum, a Lorem Ipsum alternative that uses a variety of delicious meat — like from porchetta and bacon to chicken drumsticks and ribeye — to comprise the text body.

3. Zombie Ipsum

The popularity of shows like The Walking Dead and The Strain has made zombie-related themes commonplace in entertainment. Take advantage of this current trend by resorting to Zombie Ipsum, which will add a bit of horror to generic lorem ipsum by incorporating words like “”soulless,” “stalking,” “zombie,” and “flesh eater,” in addition to the incoherent filler. (Braaaains…)

4. Hipster Ipsum

Hipsters stereotypically care so much about their appearance and “cool factor” that they’ll conversationally list obscure aspects of pop culture, like a classic vinyl or out-of-print book, to appear in-the-know. Hipster Ipsum pokes fun at this by adding hilarious-but-true hipster phrases like “vinyl you probably haven’t heard of,” “food truck,” and “organic chillwave” to the fold.

5. Cat Ipsum

Want to impress a cat owner at a presentation? Use Cat Ipsum and phrases like “leave fur on owner’s clothes” and “purr while eating” will bring a smile to their faces and put you in their graces.

6. Corporate Ipsum

Corporate speak is one of the dullest things to read or listen to. After all, who wants to read about “administrating empowered markets” or “efficiently unleashing cross-media information”? Not many, which makes Corporate Ipsum an effective Lorem Ipsum alternative, since it is boring enough to serve its purpose of making the text an exclusively visual entity.

7. Not Lorem Ipsum

If you have a specific topic in mind that wasn’t covered above, check out Not Lorem Ipsum. This site has dozens of industry-specific Lorem Ipsum alternatives, from cafes and churches to gyms and hairdressers. The site makes it very easy to find the perfect Lorem Ipsum alternative for your industry and crowd.

8. Wiki Ipsum

Why use Lorem Ipsum when you could use placeholder text specific to your industry? I could see this being particularly useful for creating demos for industry-specific WordPress themes. Instead of Lorem Ipsum, use placeholder text about any topic you desire, pulled directly from Wikipedia.

The plethora of Lorem Ipsum alternatives provides users with many options, regardless of their industry. Nowadays, it may be worthwhile to change it up from the traditional Lorem Ipsum. Spice it up and your presentation may be received better.

Featured image: Wenjie Zhang