Instagram overflows with "perfect" photos. Arty shots of lattes and breakfasts too pretty to eat. Panoramic vistas of achingly beautiful sunsets. And entirely too many #authentic selfies. It's enough to make you puke. Art director Erik Kessels thinks it's time for some colossal blunders. Call them .... successful screw-ups.
Kessels' new book, Failed It! How to Turn Mistakes Into Ideas and Other Advice for Successfully Screwing Up, features more than 100 goofs, gaffes and #epicfails. He's been in the creative business for more than 30 years and thinks the world would be a better place if people embraced imperfection. “Society teaches us to avoid mistakes, but for creative people and innovators mistakes are essential,” he says. “Without [them] you’ll be stuck in a zone of mediocrity.”
What saves these images, gleaned from flea markets, darkrooms, and the Internet, from mediocrity are the mistakes that would prompt a lesser artist to delete the file. A serendipitously placed finger obliterates a girl's head. A trick of perspective makes a mirror appear invisible. A perfectly timed shot gives Fido a soccer ball head.
Kessels includes images by fine art photographers who make unposed, awkward and weird photos. In Matt Stuart’s Fifth Avenue, a shadow creates a comical mustache on an unsuspecting security guard. In Andreé Thiessen’s Car With Balls, two spherical sidewalk barricades align with the wheels of a car.
The intentionally cheesy title reminds you of the "Fail Better" movement that swept Silicon Valley, TED, and Malcolm Gladwell articles a few years ago. History, and Kessels' book, is filled with failures that led to breakthroughs, like the scientist who accidentally invented the pacemaker. But even an insect creeping across your lens can be a screw up that succeeds.
