Yves Behar is a young Swiss designer who has been involved in some of the most influential products in recent design history. Intrigued by furniture in his childhood home, Behar tells of how he adopted a design philosophy that involved designing objects that tell a story at an early point in his career. He has appropriated and juxtaposed this notion with other ideas, applying them to design, creating objects that possess values, communicate ideas and emotions and enhance the overall experience.
Expressing a spectrum of design ideas including the importance of values in design, design product continuity and human involvement, Behar's understanding of design, although complicated, vast and intricate, is confident.
Behar tells of how he believes design has evolved from being an industry devoted to simply 'slapping skins on technology', to a world that stimulates and thrives on both the development of technology and its integration with a medium that involves the user, communicates and provokes emotions and has artistic undertones.
Behar talks about how design still exists for the purpose of solving problems. Except nowadays matching the human need involves creating a design that engages the user as well as solving the problem. Design has become vastly more complex however advances in technology and the study of anthropometrics has accommodated these new demands.
Behars' involvement in the design of a ceiling light that comes alive when the user draws an abstract shape on a touch sensitive pad and the light mimics the shape is used as an example.
The Leaf Light by Herman Miller unites the technological advance in functionality with the important element of human involvement and experience with the design. Behar tells of how he wished to create a lamp that could change between a subtle piece of mood lighting to bright office lamp. The user simply physically uses a dimmer style system to change purpose that the lamp is used for. Behar explains how he and the design team had to design everything including the bulbs.
Conclusive to this notion, Behar shows studio photos of designers devoted to technological and functional components working side by side with designers devoted to aesthetic properties of the Jawbone product. Designing from the inside out, Behar tells of how they wanted to remove all extraneous technological components and make something truly beautiful.
One of the most interesting designs showcased by Yves Behar is the Ywater bottle. Interestingly shaped, the Ywater bottle was designed to appeal to children and have an element of continuity after the contents had been consumed. The organic shaped bottle, symmetrical about all axes, can double as a toy building block. Behar wanted to add an element of three-dimensionality to an otherwise traditional design that has been subject to little change in recent years.
"Design is never done." Behar refers to how the design process has not ended after a product is distributed. Continuity through advertising and the products website is just as crucial as is the success of the design itself.
An important topic of focus of Behars' is how designers must consider values. Environmental and sustainability as well as business strategy and function and beauty values are all ideas that must be considered. Design is the glue that fuses these values.
As a young designer, Behars' ideas are important to consider. He brings up some issues that are important to design right now. Consumers needs have changed vastly in recent years. Involvement with products has not replaced any of the elements of good design in the past, but has been added to the equation. Design success is determined by the presentation of new technologies in conjunction with an experience that intrigues the user. Values associated with designs are constantly changing. Designers must take into consideration values significant to the world at that present time. Behar addresses the ideas in design right now, showcasing the exciting new possibilities presented to emerging designers from a technological advancement viewpoint, to a consumer wants and needs viewpoint, and everything in between.
I will say now, I find Yves Behar to be unclear in the presentation of his design philosophies, skimming over a variety of alternative approaches as apposed to focusing solely on one and executing it immaculately, as many great designers of our age do. In this speech in particular, Behar seems to be vaguely trying to deconstruct a plethora of vastly different products all of which have been designed from different perspectives.
Alternatively, I note Behar's closing statement that I find to be an inspirational, confident, optimistic and positive approach to consider when designing: "If we all work together in creating value, if we keep in mind the values of the work we do, we can change the companies we work with and eventually, together, maybe we can change the world."
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