Burn Your Portfolio: Stuff they don’t teach you in design school, but should

30. Filler Failures

As designers, many times we find ourselves having to create designs prior to obtaining all necessary assets from the client. This requires that you use some elements For Placement Only (FPO). Unfortunately, without question, sometime, somewhere in your career some FPO elements will end up in the final product. In a printed design they may actually go to press. In a website, they inevitably will be pushed to the live server. It happens; you are, after all, only human.

I learned this lesson the hard way. About a year into my career, I was waiting on copy for a website I was creating. I was young and frustrated. I need some filler text for the design, so I thought I’d vent a little. I began writing, “Why am I writing this copy? ...