As part of our 2011 theme of telling the truth, Nick Eagleton, Creative Director at The Partners spoke frankly about failure. He believes that it’s not enough just talking about successes and what designers have done right. “We stand to learn more from being honest with each other and admitting failures,” Nick said.

Nick shared a few of his failure stories with the audience. He gave the example that a heart surgeon has a very narrow margin for error. If they get something wrong, then someone dies. Bad design is not life threatening, but the margin for error is huge. A few of the examples that Nick gave of his own failures were:

• no one got it
• it was too late
• it looked horrible
• it disappointed

Nick said that he personally has a collection of failures that include aspects of all these things. He’s made designs he admits are hideous, although he still retains a certain affection for some of them.

He explained there are three types of error.
• skill-based
• knowledge based
• rule-based

Nick explained the problem with failure for designers is that the attitude towards a designer’s mistakes can sometimes be shhhhh!!! And no one points out what you’ve done wrong. It’s not the same thing for heart surgeons or engineers. Nick used the term ‘ballistic behaviour’ to describe the situation where you fail to change course by not looking back and continue to head in the wrong direction until it is too late.

A simple cure? “Think about your thinking,” Nick advised. “Look back at the way you thought. Ask what you did wrong. Learn from it.”

The personal examples of failure that Nick used were:

1. Goldsmiths.
Nick and his team were asked to design a Christmas catalogue to sell jewellery. When they set out they put their hearts and souls into the task, they came up with a beautifully designed catalogue with jewellery in the shape of a Christmas tree, beautifully shot photographs, it was a designed masterpiece or so they thought until they found out that the goal of Goldsmiths was not to have a beautifully designed catalogue. The goal of Goldsmiths was to sell jewellery to the tens of thousands of people who were out looking to buy presents. What Nick and his team should have done was show pictures of fathers and cousins and kids, not just jewellery. Nick admitted that not being clear about the client’s goals is a crime of professionalism.

2. Post Office guidelines.
The Post Office guidelines contained such a vast amount of material that no one had ever read them all probably except for the person who wrote them. Nick took painstaking care into writing little stories about the logo and portraying the Post Office as a place at the heart of the community. While Nick was busy doing all this research, the Post Office was busy rebranding. All the work and effort he had put into it became irrelevant and it was too late. He didn’t think to ask the client what direction they were headed in; he was too myopic to see that.

3. The Partners.
Nick told us that at The Partners to wind down on Friday they each have to tell a story. They have to make it relevant and funny. He thought he’d try something different. He wrote on a piece of paper: Who I like at The Partners, Who I hate at The Partners, Who I’ve had sexual fantasies about at The Partners. Then he put the pieces of paper into the shredder. It didn’t succeed on the day. No one laughed. No one even mentioned it. It must’ve been that bad.

4. Jerwood Visual Arts.
Nick and his team had previously done experimental catalogues which worked really well. This time they were torn between reflecting what the show was really supposed to be about, locate, and what it had become. They lost their way and got lost in the project. Nick admitted their final design looks like someone had thrown up on it. They failed through compromise and sticking to an idea.

5. KPMG annual report.
The final report had no idea; no substance; no story ⎯ only photography and words. The page: KPMG is a great place to work shows deeply depressed people. “Great place to work,” Nick said, “no it’s not. Look at it!” He got it wrong. Purely and simply. Where the client had a lack of vision, he should have had one for them. He didn’t and the design failed.

Amanda Tatham commented that since Nick was shoved in the deep end, it is not surprising he didn’t bob up. At least he was smart enough to know when something was not working. And that it was a collective failure, not a personal one.

Others commented that clients don’t always know what they what, but they need to be clear about the things that are there already that shouldn’t be changed. The most important things to know are the primary goal and who it is for. As designers it is always our fault when the buck stops.

Someone else from the audience asked if there was a way to accelerate learning from our failures to learn quicker and make fewer mistakes.

Nick said that he wasn’t sure but that he found it useful raking over his worst hits or ‘skeletons in his closet’. “It’s important to look back,” Nick said. “Failing is an important part of the design process and we shouldn’t be afraid to do it.”

So what is there to take away from this? Sometimes you can get seduced by your own creativity as a designer and miss the point. But don’t be disheartened by failure. Failure may be an inevitable part of success. There are actually successful failures, these are the ones you can learn from, and you have to appreciate that.

“Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” - Samuel Beckett