Failure.

Our ability to create innovative solutions to art and design problems is finite. How we speak and approach art or what I call the “creative vernacular” is typically limited to what we know, and we cannot possibly know everything. Like any skilled craftsman we are limited to the tools and materials we are aware of. For many this means more exposure to art and literature and though I agree that is necessary I feel it is more than that. I believe we have to fail more. 

It seems that many of us handled failure as children far better than we do now as adults. We fell off our bikes, and simply got back on them. Today we fail, we post it on social media, and we wallow in our own self-pity. Sure, one could argue that the repercussions could be far more dire than just ruining a joy ride on our huffy but, the ability to get back up is paramount to someday gaining an understanding of the task and what is necessary for its success. That success and the possible trials to attain it, give us the expertise needed to expand our own creative vernacular. 

With each new skillset we become able to experiment further through cross pollination with our preexisting skillsets thus, then exponentially expands or limitations. This is important because creative problem solving isn’t always the shortest distance between A and B. It can be at times, the most beautiful distance, the curviest distance, or the darkest distance, etc. Just a quick survey of traffic signs from across the globe will show how many different nations graphically solved the same problems with different design solutions. This implies then that our creative vernacular also greatly effects our ability to be original, or to help evolve an already established idea into something better. 

Failure can be difficult, but it is necessary. Today in education I find it more and more difficult to explain this to my grade-driven, attention seeking, students. Now to be fair, those adjectives don’t apply to all, but a quick scan of articles on millennials and GenZ will show that this is a rising epidemic. There are many possible causes such as the publication of their failures on social media, the pressure generated from rising costs in tuition and the financial burden it creates when a scholarship is lost, or it could just be good old-fashioned bad parenting. No matter the reason, students today are crippled by the thought of failure. The result of this is carbon copies of the same proven solutions over and over again and usually with poor execution due to an inability to perfect their craftsmanship through failure. 

So, what’s next? I’m not an expert on it, but I can tell you that over the past 9 years of teaching I have attempted many different solutions, and the best result has come from forced failure. How is this done? In some instances, with project expectations that are nearly unachievable, or with limitations that force experimentations or new approaches. These methods can and should also be self-imposed on ourselves so that we can also teach by example. Below are a few examples of successful projects that had plenty of failures.