My first week of WK12, Dan Wieden, head of Wieden+Kennedy, asked me, in front a group, what my biggest fear was. My honest response was, “Failure.” He pointed to the Fail Harder wall and asked, “What do you see on that wall over there?” It was brutally embarrassing. “Fail… harder?” I squeaked. I had entered the world of WK12.
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Graduate that I am, I was invited to participate in a group show opening this July 7th at Wieden+Kennedy headquartersin Portland, Oregon about the concept of failure. Fail Harder is the goal of 12.
Doing something the wrong way, attempting something you’re not supposed to. Turning a stupid idea into reality, or just failng pretty hard.
It’s not a safety net. It’s a challenge.
Recently, I learned how to use a shotgun. Aiming between the eyes, the first two shots went right through the cheekbones of my clip-art target. Every single shot after that faded low and to the left. Fail.
Or was it a fail? The target would still be dead. I now know to shoot up and to the right when aiming. And I have a great new menacing mean-man poster for my studio. Plus, it was a fail with lots of blasts and power and shooting of stuff. A pretty glorious failure.
In creating the new rendition of my blasted target poster for the show, I changed my mind several times about the content of the piece. Ultimately, I decided to use QR codes on the piece, and allow people to access different digital versions while viewing the show in person.
I submerged myself in the free online world of gifs and resizing, hosting and uploading. It’s been hours of frustration, but obviously, I did it. I wanted to call it a fail and quit many times, but ultimately, I now know more than when I started.
The fails and non-fails and attempted fails of WK12 were for me, invaluable learning experiences. I’m still learning my lessons, and still spending my weekends slaving away in the name of 12. Damn you, twelvers, you did it again.
