The exhibition Mockups Before Fuckups looks at design through its earliest stages — the experiments, tests, models, mistakes and discoveries that precede any final outcome. After a first presentation in Monterrey, it arrives at Museo Franz Mayer in an expanded version, drawing on the archive that JDE design has built over nearly 15 years of practice.
The show emerged from a need inside the studio to communicate what is rarely shown: while finished products get most of the attention, Jorge Diego Etienne argues that behind every object, space or experience lies a chain of decisions, corrections and discoveries that shape the project.
Mockups Before Fuckups – Highlights:
The invisible stages
Developed by Jorge Diego Etienne with curatorial assistance from Roble Vargas, the exhibition brings those invisible processes to the centre. It gathers physical models, functional prototypes, material explorations, drawings, diagrams, 3D-printed models, project documentation and pieces that never reached production.
Five stages, fifteen principles
The show is organised around five stages of the studio’s methodology, and fifteen principles that frame design as continuous learning — where mistakes are not failures but tools for reducing risk, generating knowledge and building better outcomes.
From furniture to the city
The selection reflects the breadth of JDE design‘s practice: furniture collections for emerging companies, collaborations with manufacturers and global brands, and projects at the urban scale, from bus stops and public parks to cultural spaces.
Highlights include Choose Your Bullets, a solid aluminium pen holder designed nearly 20 years ago while Etienne was still a student; the tableware developed for Pangea, a Michelin-starred restaurant; and the Galeana collection, a personal research and collectible design project.
A living archive
“More than a design exhibition, this show is a living archive that reveals a methodology built over more than a decade of active practice,” says Roble Vargas, curatorial assistant for the exhibition.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication edited by designaholic and written by Jorge Diego Etienne, gathering unpublished photographs, reflections and lessons from more than 15 years of practice. A public program of workshops, guided tours and conversations runs alongside the show, on view at Museo Franz Mayer.
Editorial Team
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