To go back to the drawing board

During World War II, the Allies and the Axis worked doggedly to build planes better than each other. In March 1941, The New Yorker magazine published an editorial cartoon drawn by Peter Arno. The cartoon shows some military men rushing towards a crashed plane, and a designer, with a roll of blueprints under his arm, leaving while saying, “Well, back to the old drawing board”.

The term “to go back to the drawing board” has been used since then as a jocular acceptance that a design has failed and thus a new one is required. The saying was gaining its popularity by 1966 when it was used as a title for an episode in a TV series and several books.