SMALL IS THE NEW BIG

PAUL BENNETT, Talks at TED

Paul Bennet talks at TED with a theory proposal for the current designers of the world. His presentation aims to create reconciliation between the big organisms of production & the small individual character who consume. Focusing on the importance of the individual consumer & his/her needs, Bennett explains why the simple things in life are sources of inspiration that gives us much more than general studies & sterile lab designs which are focused in features that don’t matter as much. The exposure to the consumer’s context & the understanding of the consumer’s life style is a vital part to create the small design that makes the big difference.

As Bennett says “Small is the new big”, it is indeed the realization of a world were individualism is an important part to thinks about when designing. The understanding of a market is not exactly the understanding of an individual within this market & at the moment designers can design according to the era’s characteristics & not the individual’s needs. Bennett demonstrated this with a hospital research, where the understanding of the patient’s hospital experience made change the importance focus of a clinical clean room, bright lights, modern entertainment & wide open windows, as we would think would make a patient feel better. Patients could see anything else than the roof thus the design for the hospital rooms was adapted with the help of the nurses. With ceiling drawings, family murals & concepts of individuality such as different floors for each room, the patients experience was improved dramatically with just a few simple touches that gave the patients more comfort than a flashy hi-tech room.
Other example of approaching the individuals is the presentation of the IKEA shelf needed to be design for children. In the process of making this shelf the designer exposed himself to the conditions of children & played with them & as one of them to come up with very unique & playful green drop holders.

From the small concepts Bennett jumps to another point: thoughtless actions can have huge intentions & potential. The use of the world around us (us being common people), can highlight new purposes to things that already exist with different functions. This means that the world evolves around its products, peoples minds come up with different interpretations of objects & designs where the improvisation of these can mean the next step in an object’s or idea’s evolution.

To evolve into a design atmosphere of individuality Paul Bennett shows us the reasons & the means why individualism can be the process to achieve a balance between a mass the organization & the person. -“Picking up battles big enough to matter, small enough to win”- as Bennett says, is the way to accomplish a product for value.