The art book that actually encourages you to fail

“Let’s face it, we’ve all failed. Maybe not on a grand scale, but in some way, shape or form, we’ve screwed up.” That’s the first line of Dutch photo curator and art director Erik Kessels new book Failed It! (published by Phaidon).

It might not be the most inspiring way to start a book full of photography advice but – we're all adults now – failure is a large part of life. And although few of us would be brave enough to admit our shortcomings, Kessels sees the silver lining in our mistakes… in fact, he sees success. Penning this pocket-size pep talk that you can pull out whenever you’ve accidentally shoved your finger in front of the viewfinder of an important moment, or put the puzzle back the wrong way. If Kessels says it's ‘all good’ then who are we to argue? And in a world where we can easily Photoshop over our mistakes, perhaps failure really is the new key to success?

Failed It! is published by Phaidon and available now