Freedom to Fail

3 Ways to Build a Culture of Creative Exploration.

Failure will happen. Fall gracefully.

“Design is messy before it is meaningful, chaotic before balanced, and filled with failure along the way.”

Over ten years ago, Nick Campbell summed up the design process as “Move stuff around until it doesn’t look like sh*t.” Of course it’s more complicated than that, but he had a point. Design is messy before it is meaningful, chaotic before balanced, and filled with failure along the way. There are a plethora of things that can kill the creative spirit and force designers to look for safe solutions, from tight timelines to inadequate support from leadership. We should give designers room to explore, support and guidance, and a way to recover from failure. Here are three ways to help you build a culture of creative exploration.

1. Create a Safe Environment

A creative culture needs a supportive, nurturing, and safe environment from which to flourish. This can only happen when teams are free to explore bold ideas without fear of ridicule or punishment. One large client I worked with had created an environment of fear and intimidation, where failure was met with scorn and greater measures of control. The team couldn’t even create a new icon without it going through an…