Iterate: Ten Lessons in Design and Failure

Failure is an inevitable part of any creative practice. As game designers, John Sharp and Colleen Macklin have grappled with crises of creativity, false starts, and bad outcomes. Their tool for coping with the many varieties of failure: iteration, the cyclical process of conceptualizing, prototyping, testing, and evaluating. Sharp and Macklin have found that failure--often hidden, covered up, a source of embarrassment--is the secret ingredient of iterative creative process. In Iterate, they explain how to fail better.

After laying out the four components of creative practice--intention, outcome, process, and evaluation--Sharp and Macklin describe iterative methods from a wide variety of fields. They show, for example, how Radiolab cohosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich experiment with radio as a storytelling medium
how professional skateboarder Amelia Br dka develops skateboarding tricks through trial and error
and how artistic polymath Miranda July explores human frailty through a variety of media and techniques. Whimsical illustrations tell parallel stories of iteration, as hard-working cartoon figures bake cupcakes, experiment with levitating office chairs, and think outside the box in toothbrush design ("let's add propellers "). All, in their various ways, use iteration to transform failure into creative outcomes. With Iterate, Sharp and Macklin offer useful lessons for anyone interested in the creative process.

Case Studies:
Allison Tauziet, winemaker
Matthew Maloney, animator
Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, Radiolab cohosts
Wylie Dufresne, chef
Nathalie Pozzi, architect, and Eric Zimmerman, game designer
Andy Milne, jazz musician
Amelia Br dka, skateboarder
Baratunde Thurston, comedian
Cas Holman, toy designer
Miranda July, writer and filmmaker