greeking

Greeking is the practice of using placeholder text to simulate the appearance of real text in a design or layout. It helps focus on typography, spacing, and visual balance rather than content, and is widely used in graphic design, publishing, web development, and user interface prototyping. The most common form is lorem ipsum, a scrambled Latin passage that approximates letter distribution without conveying readable meaning.

Origins: The lorem ipsum text derives from a work by Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (45 BCE). The current placeholder text was popularized in the 16th century in the printing industry and achieved widespread use in desktop publishing in the late 20th century through Letraset and later digital typesetting systems such as PageMaker and web frameworks.

Usage: Designers insert lorem ipsum or other filler blocks to test typefaces, line length, grids, and layout. It helps prevent readers from being distracted by meaningful content and allows teams to iterate without waiting for copy. In some cases, short pseudo-Latin phrases or generic placeholders replace lorem ipsum to convey a conceptual goal.

Variations: Beyond lorem ipsum, greeking can involve simple blocks, underscores, or non-letter glyphs to approximate density. Some tools generate language-agnostic filler or localized text to test multilingual typography.

Criticism and considerations: Placeholder text can be misleading if left in production or used without accessibility considerations. Designers should replace greeking with real content before publication and ensure accessibility and localization considerations when testing typography.