Take a look at some selected pages from Beautiful Failure, an 80 page editorial. Beautiful Failure is a book written and designed about failing systems, and all of the content was based upon the lowercase ‘b’ from the Rockwell typeface. By first examining the structural and anatomical integrity of that letterform, we used our discoveries to fuel the remaining subject matter within the book. Informative articles were written and used as a continuous reference. The series of experiments in this book were based upon the concepts of modularity and emergence that had been discussed in the written articles. The design and construction of the three experiments resembled the structural integrity of our letterform and were intended to push the limits of creativity.
The development and compilation of this book was an emerging, modular system. It was composed of multiple parts that worked to form a system, and the failures continuously led to new discoveries. All of the content was self-generated through research, experimentation, and progressive design. From this process we have learned how modularity and emergence can greatly enhance design. This book was written and designed by Ashley Lapinski and Lindsay Romanowski with illustrations by Jacob Bresinski.