Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The thrill of victory...the agony of defeat.nbsp; We're not talking about just any failure. Design failure. So public. So humiliating. How do designers who are really, really good (we swear!) turn a disaster into a triumph? Read this book and find out, as dozens of top names reveal the heartbreaking--and sometimes hilarious--mistakes they have made and talk about how they were able to grow from the experiences. Self-delusion, overcommitment, procrastination...they're all here. Poor communication, missed deadlines, enraged clients...yes, they're here too. Read Design Disasters and weep? No! Read Design Disasters and be inspired to find the silver lining in even the cloudiest situation.

Featuring essays by: Henry Petroski * Alissa Walker * David Barringer * Allan Chocinov * Peter Blegvad * Ross MacDonald * Robert Grossman * Ina Saltz * Warren Lehrer * Rob Trostle * Ralph Caplan * Richard Saul Wurman * Marian Bantjes * Rick Meyerowitz * Amanda Bowers * David Jury * Veronique Vienne * Francis Levy * Colin Berry * Nick Curry * Debbie Millman, and more!

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1.5 Acknowledgments (p. xiii)
• 1 Introduction: Designing Failure (p. xvii)
• Learning from Failure (p. 1)
• 2 On Failure (p. 2)
• 3 Fail Safe (p. 7)
• 4 Failure: An Owner's Manual (p. 13)
• 5 From the Annals of Self-Delusion (p. 16)
• 6 The Power of Leaving Things Half Done (p. 25)
• 7 My Hack Career (p. 29)
• 8 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ulcer (p. 34)
• The Language of Failure (p. 43)
• 9 Failure Is an Occasion for Mixing Metaphors (p. 44)
• 10 Stumbling Is the Cost of Doing Business (p. 51)
• 11 Hailing, Failing, and Still Sailing (p. 57)
• 12 Wrong Is the New Right (p. 71)
• 13 Memory Failure and Imagination (p. 82)
• 14 Overcommitment: A Recipe for Failure (p. 92)
• 15 When Things Go Wrong (p. 97)
• Succeeding from Failure (p. 103)
• 16 Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: The Maverick Tendency in Graphic Design (p. 104)
• 17 The Failure of Success/The Success of Failure (p. 117)
• 18 No Time for Failure (p. 126)
• 19 The Evolution of Useful Things: Success through Failure (p. 133)
• 20 Design as Slow-Motion Train Wreck (p. 138)
• 21 The Nadir of My Zenith: How Great Design Failures Hath Murdered Sleep (p. 150)
• 22 The Art of the Deadline (p. 156)
• The Objects of Failure (p. 161)
• 23 My Worst Work (p. 163)
• 24 Deathdrome. A Video Game Package (p. 168)
• 25 Architectural Rendering: The Failure of Imagination (p. 173)
• 26 An Uphill Struggle (p. 180)
• 27 Spinout: Was Building a Soap Box Derby Racer My Brother's Last Best Chance of Escaping His Fate? (p. 186)
• Biographies (p. 198)