Design Disaster or Genius?
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Exhibit A -
Exhibit A Close-up
UPDATE: Thanks everyone for your leaving your thoughts on the Chipotle Lorem Ipsum bag. It's been a great topic of discussion here at the office. As promised, here are the results of my internet investigation.
Chris Arnold, Communications Director and official Chipotle spokesperson, said "It's not an accident, no. It's sort of an inside joke. That block of copy is standard issue for people in advertising and design. We thought it would be funny to leave it in and see what sort of reaction it drew."
And when we tweeted out the blog, Myra from Chipotle responded with: Or done on purpose. 
Long story short: DESIGN GENIUS!
Now how do we convince Chipotle to open a restaurant this side of the Channel?
Previous Post from 05/30/12
This office is obsessed with Chipotle. It's our take-out of choice and we are looking forward to sunny summer days when we don't mind the trek past South Station for lunch. Some might even call Chipotle the official burrito of kor group.
So when I ordered Chipotle for dinner the other day I noticed something strange on the to-go bag: a whole panel was lorem ipsum.
For those who don't know, lorem ipsum is a non-language (based on Latin) used as placeholder text in layout. Designers use it all the time. It's part of our everyday vernacular. But just what percentage of the Chipotle-eating population actually knows about lorem ipsum?
And why would Chipotle print this on the side of their bags? I turned to the trusty internet to do some research and it turns out I wasn't the first to notice. Some thought it was a mistake. Some pointed out that the lettering is handwritten, which indicates that it was intended for print. Others thought it was a marketing campaign directed at those in the know...an inside joke. And still others thought it was targeting us all, in order to generate some buzz.
So before I unleash the results of my investigation, what do you think? Let us know and in a week or so I will have an update for you. And yes, you could just Google it yourself, but what's the fun in that?
And most importantly, who wants to go get a burrito?
6 comments so far
Genius! Chipotle is for designers only! I say they should use veggie ipsum in their next round of printing.
I’m guessing the designer left some typeset Lorem in the design file that was sent to the hand lettering artist, who went on to copy the Lorem verbatim.
If I’m right do I win a burrito?
I think it’s an inside joke - luckily, we are in the know and know what lorem ipsum is. Even if you don’t know what it is, it gets people talking, even after they’ve eaten their burrito, in turn making them crave a burrito all over again. Genius if you ask me!
If I had to guess, I would say that a 2 billion dollar company would not let something like that slide by accident. Too many people to check and re-check copy. If it did get printed by accident, it would certainly never have made it to the store level. My guess….....on purpose as an inside joke to all design/marketing/advertising people, to be filled with real copy in later generations. What better way to generate buzz from the ground level?
absolutely done on purpose - to go viral without shooting a video.
genius for sure. It gives new meaning to the expression ‘food for thought.’ Plus the wording is really well designed. Thanks for sharing!