The Failed Painter is a personal book about material anxiety in Graphic design’s creative work. It speaks of fascination for singular and multiple production processes, perfectibility, and imperfectability in times of virtual surface and hunger for authenticity.

Writing out of the persona ‘The Failed Painter’, this book is a collection of essays on design and art spanning culture, race, nation, and sheer vandalism.

Within this highly curated, yet varied assortment of approachable writing on aesthetics: space exploration, mercenaries, puberty, instant nostalgia, precarious labor, and of course, zombies.

Published by Set Margins and edited by Angela Paladino.

The Failed Painter contains 12 essays, many published in English for the first time.

It also contains photographs by Patrick Tsai and abstract Letraset compositions designed by Ian.

The Failed Painter is 220 pages and is bound with gatefold covers.

It uses a variety of typefaces designed by Ian, including the debut showing of Cooper Chrome, designed in collaboration with Pascal Santoso.

The book features a brand new introduction essay, as well.

You can pick up a copy via Set Margins here.

The Failed Painter is exactly the same dimensions as Ian’s previous book The Impossibility of Silence.