Placeholder Image Generator

What this tool does

The Placeholder Image Generator creates a solid-colour image with a neat label in the centre — the familiar grey rectangle that says something like 1200 × 630. It is the kind of stand-in graphic you drop into a mockup, wireframe or slide deck while the real photo or illustration is still being prepared. You set the width and height, choose a background and text colour, optionally write your own label, and the tool draws a live preview. When it looks right, download it as a PNG at the exact pixel size you asked for, or as a scalable SVG. The page loads with a ready-made 1200 × 630 placeholder so you can see how everything behaves straight away.

When you would use it

Placeholders are a quiet workhorse of design and development. A web designer building a landing page in Figma or a slide deck drops them in to block out where hero images, thumbnails and gallery tiles will sit, so the layout reads correctly before any photography exists. A front-end developer uses them to check how a card grid reflows when images are square versus wide, or to fill a content management system with test entries. Teachers and presenters use them to reserve space in handouts and slides. Anyone writing documentation can use a clearly labelled placeholder to show readers exactly what size of asset a template expects.

Because the label shows the dimensions, a placeholder doubles as a measuring tool: drop one into a layout and you can instantly see whether the slot is the size you intended.

How to use it

1. Type a width and height in pixels, or click one of the common size presets — Full HD, social card, square, ad unit and more.
2. Pick a background color and a text color. Use the colour swatch or paste a hex value. Keep enough contrast that the label stays readable.
3. Leave the label text blank to print the dimensions automatically, or type your own caption such as “Hero image” or “Logo goes here”.
4. Keep auto-fit font size on to let the tool scale the text to the image, or switch it off and set the size yourself with the slider.
5. Watch the live preview update as you change settings. The preview is scaled to fit the panel but the export is always at the true pixel dimensions.
6. Click Download PNG for a fixed-resolution file, Download SVG for a scalable one, or Copy SVG code to paste the markup directly.

Tips for great results

Keep a consistent colour for every placeholder in a single mockup so the design does not look patchy — a mid-grey background with a slightly lighter label is the classic, unobtrusive choice. If you are filling a responsive grid, generate the same colour at two or three aspect ratios so the test page feels coherent. For social previews, the 1200 × 630 preset matches the dimensions most platforms expect, which makes it a safe default for sharing cards. When the placeholder will be scaled in a design tool, prefer the SVG export so it never turns blurry.

If you only need a link to a remotely hosted placeholder rather than a file you own, the placeholder URL builder constructs those addresses instead. To pick a pleasing background tone, try the gradient generator, and once you swap in real photography the image compressor will shrink it for the web.

Privacy

Every placeholder is generated locally. The tool draws the image on a canvas using JavaScript that runs entirely in your browser, and the PNG or SVG is written straight to your device. None of the dimensions, colours or label text you enter are uploaded, logged or stored once the tab is closed. That makes it safe to build placeholders for confidential client work or unreleased projects — the details never leave your computer.