How to Design Your Blog Before You Even Write Your First Post

Some bloggers like to set up their blog design before they've written any content. But if you don't have any published posts you won't know how your fonts will look. What can you use in place of 'real' text? Should you just write the word 'text' over and over again.

Back in the 1970s, graphic designers and printers solved this problem. They used a stream of Latin text beginning with the phrase 'Lorem ipsum...' in place of any actual written. This sample text acts shows the effects of font choices and typesetting and mimics the visual feel of English on the page. It also helps the design process because you aren't focusing so much on the content - but more on the presentation.

And still today, designers use the Lorem Ipsum text when choosing fonts, colors and sizing for text.

When I'm working on a blog template I'll usually go to the Lorem Ipsum generator at and grab a few paragraphs of text and drop them into a post and save it. Here's how to use it:

1. Go to the Lorem Ispum generator http://www.lipsum.com/feed/html. You'll see several paragraphs of generated text.
2. Select and Copy the text (Ctrl-C or Command-C)
3. Go into your blog's dashboard for the blog you're working on and compose a new post
4. Paste the Lorem Ipsum text into the post editor (Ctrl-V or Command-V) and Save
5. View your blog in a separate window
6. You'll now have a post of Latin text that will let you focus less on the content and more on the visual presentation of the text

Bonus: To be sure you're seeing all variations of text formatting, be sure you bold some of the text, italicize it, add links, add a bulleted list, add a numbered list, etc. This will let you see how different font sizes and typefaces look in a variety of text formats.

Warning: Don't let perfectionism get in the way of blogging! You can always change your blog design later. Throw up some Lorem Ipsum text, make some choices and get going!

Here's the full Wikipedia entry on Lorem Ipsum.