Failing Up

I went to an art school that was so intense, we had semester reviews where students had the possibility of being put on probation, and ultimately kicked out of the program if their portfolio was deemed not strong enough.

Graduating with an excellent skillset and a thick-ish skin (totally against my nature as a precariously sensitive soul), I also learned in college to hide all my mistakes. All-nighters were a staple of my week. If you made an error on a rendering, it was not Bob Ross' world ... there were no happy little accidents in gauche or vellum renderings. You either X-acto'd or masked out your error, but mostly started completely over. 

I spent much of my career refining precision. Pretty drawings get made into something, so the accuracy of tech packs are vital. And how many units of your designs are sold, or editorial attention they get, often relates to how good your next brief will be. There had been very little room in my career progress for failure.

However, when I started my own consultancy in 2009, it was ironically the first time that failure was an option. 

Scratch that ... a necessity.

Even when the stakes have been the highest (my livelihood being tied directly to my pocket, so ultimately my family's stability), it has been incredibly freeing to finally have room for experimentation, discovery, and failure.

Oh goodness how much I learned getting Design Seeds up and running. The learning curve, all-nighters, and absolute face plants were critical in being able to create a color and inspiration site that is going strong after a decade. The continual learning curve has been one of the most insanely fulfilling aspects of the journey.

And in thinking about the importance of failure, it seems absolutely counterintuitive to be vulnerable in 2020. Cancel culture, trolls, and copycats  occupy the interwebs in a way that is unrecognizable compared to 2009's web.

Despite all that, the beauty of connectivity, discovery, and expression are still vibrantly available in the blogging world, and that is why I am set on keeping a blog for HI HUES. And although grateful for what success I've been fortunate to experience this past decade, it's more important to lean into gratitude for the journey. 

I don't want to dissect the failures, f*ck-ups, and flops from my successes. And it's not masochism keeping me "failure inclusive" ... but rather, kindness. Kindness to myself, and hopefully to others to show my journey is the farthest thing from a photoshopped, filter-applied, curated gallery.

Here's to the inevitable face-plant. At least we know we have skin in the game and are working towards failing up.

What about you? What have been your most spectacular fail-ups?