Often referred to as dummy content, filler text, or simply lorem ipsum, it is a kind of pseudo-Latin that graphic designers have been using perhaps as far back as the 1500’s. The idea for such “sample content” is to fill the spaces of a design where text would normally be.

Because the text is indecipherable to all but a Latin scholar who might be able to piece together this “not quite Latin” text, it allows the viewer’s eyes to flow over the content without being tempted to read it (because they can’t, of course). When meaning is removed from the text, this allows the elements of design to be highlighted.