Benjamin Franklin once said there are only two things certain in life: death and taxes. Well, I’d like to add a third one: change. Change is inevitable and it impacts on everything, not least on the way we design. Over the past 60 years, we have seen a rise in consumer culture, individualism and globalisation. As a result, modern societies are becoming more complex and trickier to understand.
So, as designers (or for that matter anyone with a product or service to market), how do we truly begin to understand these changes in order to develop solutions that truly meet people’s needs? Well, to start with, we need to move away from traditional demographics, which are now far from adequate.
Recently, Gensler took part in The Sleep Set design competition at Sleep 2016 (which we went on to win), to create a guestroom experience that pushes boundaries and explores new ideas for the future. The theme explored The Science of Tribes, a topic that really spoke to us.