“Ever tried, ever failed, no matter. Try again, fail again, fail better.”
—Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho
“Iterate: Perspectives on Design & Failure” is a collection of interviews with practitioners from a wide spectrum of creative pursuits—the culinary arts, sports, art, radio, toy design, user experience design, game design and comedy—that explores the many ways we can fail better.
Many of the people we interviewed showed us that failure is a catalyst for creativity. And they each have their own unique methodologies for transforming failure into something amazing. While everyone seems to use the process of iteration, they each iterate in unique ways. This series is an attempt to capture that diversity and show that there’s no “one-size-fits-all” approach to creative problem solving.
This series is the basis for an upcoming book on failure and the iterative process by Colleen Macklin and John Sharp, both practitioners of failure, game designers, and professors of design at Parsons School of Design.
Funding for the series was provided by a faculty research grant from The New School.
The Team
Shuangshuang Huo
Shuangshuang Huo is a multimedia creator and filmmaker with an MFA from the Design & Technology program at Parson School of Design. She studied Film & TV and minored in Psychology in China. After graduation, she took part in film and TV production as assistant director, script supervisor, video editor, videographer and photographer. In order to seek for new ways of expressions, she keeps breaking her own limits, trying new things and enriching skill sets.
Angelica S. Jang
Angelica S. Jang is a freelance art director/designer who is passionate about embodying ideas into effective and creative forms fueled by a mixture of art + design + technology and coffee. I received an MFA Design & Technology at Parsons School of Design, a BFA in Fine Arts at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, and graduated from the Digital Design program at Vancouver Film School.
Colleen Macklin
Colleen Macklin is a game designer, an Associate Professor in the school of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design and founder and co-director with John Sharp of PETLab (Prototyping Education and Technology Lab), a lab that develops games for experimental learning and social engagement. She is a member of the game design collective Local No. 12, best known for their social card game, The Metagame. She got her interactive design chops DJing and making visuals for rave parties in New York City and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her work has been shown at Come Out and Play, UCLA Art|Sci Center, The Whitney Museum for American Art and Creative Time.
http://colleenmacklin.com
@colleenmacklin
Gabrielle Patacsil
Gabrielle Patacsil has a diverse background in architecture, theater and film backed by experience as a designer, strategist, producer, actor and director. Her work spans corporate, public, cultural and educational institutions. She has an MFA from the Design & Technology program at Parsons School of Design. She is a dramatic blinker.
John Sharp
John is a game designer, graphic designer, art historian and educator. His research is focused on game design curriculum, videogame aesthetics and the creative process. John is a member of the game design collective Local No. 12, which makes games out of cultural practices, including The Metagame. He is also a partner in Supercosm LLC, a consultancy for non-profits and organizations in the arts, education and entertainment fields. John’s day job is at Parsons School of Design where he is the Associate Professor of Games and Learning in the School of Art, Media and Technology. There, he co-directs PETLab (Prototyping, Education and Technology Lab) with Colleen.