Dave Cowart has made a great suite of funny placeholder image tools for development. They work off of URL requests which return an image based on variables in the URL string. While this has been done before, his group of tools provides humor while developing which I think is great.

There are three different websites to get these placeholder images from. For Nicolas Cage placeholder images use PlaceCage, for Bill Murray use Fill Murray, and for Steven Segall use Steven SeGALLERY. Usage of these placeholder image tools is pretty simple, here is a quick example of how to use it.

http://www.[toolURL].com/[variable]/[width]/[height]/

The variable argument is not necessary to return a placeholder image, if not used it will just return normal images of the person at the specified size, but it can be fun. All of the sites will accept a variable of /g/ for grayscale images but the Nicolas Cage site also will accept a variable of /c/ for CRAZY!

So, the URL:

http://www.fillmurray.com/800/500

Returns the image:

And the URL:

http://www.stevensegallery.com/g/300/700/

Returns the image:

And the URL:

http://www.placecage.com/c/900/500

Returns the image:

Pretty simple stuff, but it breaks up the monotony of solid colored placeholder images when you are developing while waiting on content.

Tagged: Bill Murray, Nicolas Cage, Placehold Images, placeholder image, placeholder images, Steven Segall