fireworks, viagra, lsd, champagne, and pringles? yes, please. it’s party time!

 

MISTAKES ON PURPOSE WORKSHOPS help people invent and discover truly original things. and to get unstuck when they’re stuck. it could be an invention that saves lives or a new dessert. it could be a lucrative investment or a road trip. it could help you find an apartment, pick up a check, or pick up a chick. can i say that? no? well, i don’t care.

—

workshops have been held for google, ted-x, adobe, ikea, scholastic, artek, starbucks, american greetings, kikkerland, meredith, eden_spiekermann, aiga, adc, risd, calarts, and many others

anybody can participate. also, it’s just plain fun.

 

recent press:

 

:www.curbed.com/article/laurie-rosenwalds-blue-floored-lof...

 

www.printmag.com/design-inspiration/what-matters-laurie-r...

 

to order book:

found.ee/howtomakemistakesonpurpose

 

here’s the top secret workshops in action link:

vimeo.com/album/4503334

 

my new book how to make mistakes on purpose, from @hachetteus:

 

NOW i am scheduling both live and zoom workshops, events, conferences, talks and podcasts to coincide with this- here is some info, and if there’s a good time and place, let’s make something happen. in the meantime, see below:

 

making mistakes? everyone who hears that says, “oh, i’m already quite good at that.” ah, if this were only true. it’s not. i’ll bet you are highly skilled. and when you get good at something, you repeat it. it’s satisfying to know it will turn out right.

what’s wrong with that?

 

everything. because shared tastes and experiences, plus digital technology equal no surprises.

computers don’t make mistakes. like velcro. or coca cola.

so many things invented by accident are particularly fun and exciting. fireworks, viagra, lsd, champagne, and pringles? yes, please. it’s party time! and if things go south, the morning after . . . there’s always penicillin.

not doing what everybody else is doing seems worthwhile in a world where some people have 10.1 million followers on instagram. jiff pom has 10.1 million followers. jiff pom is a pomeranian.

 

underneath your tattoos you’re still a mainstream . . . prunt. innovation needs to go against the prevailing grain. to zig when everyone else zags. when you surprise yourself, you surprise others. and that is priceless in a world where everything seems to have been done.

 

how to make mistakes on purpose is not that adorable psychopath you once dated, your home pickling phase, or baby’s first tattoo. these may be spectacularly regrettable, but…no. what we do in the workshop is top secret. thousands of workshop participants, worldwide…all have sworn omertà, the mafia code of silence. it must be a surprise! this book finally reveals our m.o.

 

warning! prospective participants shouldn’t really see us drawing- we might as well be flipping burgers. it’s about quantity, not quality. careless short-order surprises. so it has to be a surprise. shh!

 

“laurie has the most native talent of anyone i’ve ever met. she constantly reinvents herself, whereas most people never get invented to begin with. she is a jewel.”—douglas coupland, author of generation x and girlfriend in a coma

 

can i get a witness?

 

“playing with the studio 360 staff for an afternoon under laurie rosenwald's supervision was, like eating a certain candy bar,

indescribably delicious. and unlike eating a candy bar, it was also sublimely useful.” -kurt andersen, host of the peabody award-winning public radio show studio 360

“this experience loosened up my uptight intellectual mindset

like nothing else.”

-ellen lupton, director, graphic design mfa program, maryland institute college of art

“by encouraging me to make mistakes on purpose, laurie showed me how to embrace my inner failure-turning a perceived weakness into something personal, unique, and powerful. woe shall befall my pathetic enemies now!"

-alex isley, creative director, alexander isley inc., aiga medalist

"fun, cool, a wrong-thinking, crazy, intuitive, inspiring, top brain, collaborative, bottom brain, and definitely not business as usual.”

-john bielenberg, co-founder and managing member, c2, project m

"it was well worth it. we got great feedback and

actually we are using the work for our new manifesto."

-steven b. cook, eden_spiekermann_ berlin

“in a single word: wowza! exactly what we need to loosen our creative bones without looking at a screen...thank god! it was 60minutes (our team had the abridged version) of sheer insanity in the best possible way. we were so loose & inspired afterwards that it felt like we collectively had a creative awakening of sorts, it was just such fun.“

hajdeja ehline, creative director, adobe

“an important, unpredictable injection to our creative process”

-björn kusoffsky, ceo & founder, stockholm design lab, agi member

“laurie rosenwald takes no prisoners. make no mistake though, it works. students have great fun, but be afraid, be very afraid.”

-professor lawrence zeegen

dean of design, ravensbourne, vice president

ico-d / international council of design