Write-up: exploring creative mistakes at our last Nicer Tuesdays

Given everyone’s capacity for making mistakes (royal screw-ups) we thought that it would make a great theme for a Nicer Tuesdays, so we invited along four speakers from different parts of the creative sphere to entertain us with their stories and share the lessons they’d learnt.

James Ward told us how he unintentionally founded The Boring Conference off the back of making a joke on twitter after Russell Davies’ Conference of Interestingness was cancelled. He gave a fascinating insight into the value of celebrating the boring, the mundane, and the everyday as a way to understand the world – pulling in a brilliant array of references from Georges Perec, to Charles and Ray Eames’ Powers of 10 film and this man who methodically documents his sneezes.

Anna Murray and Grace Winteringham took us on a whistle-stop tour of the lessons they’d learnt from setting up the creative organisation, Patternity: and taught us that making mistakes allows you to innovate; you don’t need to conform to other business models; it’s ok to punch above your weight but if you make mistakes it’s the way you deal with them that’s important.

Designer and film-maker Carl Burgess had some funny anedcotes; he showed how his hobby for collecting surreal archival photos nearly led to a lawsuit, and experimenting with hair-brained ideas, like filming a motorbike stunt, led to disastrously flooding a photographic studio with treacle. Yet, these hiccups later became inspiration for his work, like his Ratatat promo made using staged Getty stock footage and the video for Slayer that submerged dancers in treacle.

The legendary graphic artist Anthony Burrill, known for his signature style, revealed that he wasn’t always so confident in his ideas. Looking back at early projects that left his tutors at the RCA baffled and a poster design that received a public slamming, he showed that it took a while to find an approach that worked and build up an accomplished body of work.

And, we had the enthusiastic Simon Cheadle give a 3 minute attendee talk showcasing a selection of drawing tools he’d developed to free people up when designing, forcing the user to make mistakes and embrace imperfections.

Check out our photos from the night on Facebook.

We’ll be releasing details about our next Nicer Tuesdays soon. It’s taking place on 28 May – save the date!