It’s funny how memories work, you do something, see something, smell something and it triggers a memory. I recently attended a design masterclass run by someone my husband and I have just met, it was well run, interesting and it fed the brain. But more than anything it reminded me of what I used to love and something that I stopped doing.  As a teenager I became slightly obsessed with the idea of form and function, I did some projects for college and uni around the topic of ‘seating’ and as a result, absorbed myself into textbook after textbook about ergonomics and anthropometrics, which is essentially looking at how people function and move around in the built environment that surrounds them and the relationship of people with objects that are being designed.

I would wander the halls of The Design Museum in London (my home town) looking at the Eames Chair, Rietveld’s Red & Blue Chair and his Zig Zag Chair. Marcel Bruer’s Wassily Chair. They all took into account the size and shape of the likely human that would use the object. Today their designs seem primitive but their work set the tone for design as we know it today, it pushed the boundaries.

See everyday objects like chairs are all designed around a set of average measurements, which means that it is then likely that a small person would be able to use the item as much as a larger person albeit perhaps with some discomfort and the average person (a higher percentage of the population) would be comfortable.

It all makes sense. Ergonomics is also known as “human factors engineering” and yes it needs to be in existence otherwise we would have a world full of useless objects that most people cannot use.

But it got me thinking about the way we think of ourselves, as average. I fluctuate between a size 12 and a size 14, sometimes if the clothes designer has bad measuring/labelling skills I sometimes even get away with a size 10. These are always the sizes in the shops that go first because as much as I hate the label, I’m average.

But I don’t want to be average, so we need a better way to describe people like most of us who are the median weight and height and have the standard BMI and body circumference. As far as I can see we are all quite different, yet we all slot into a pigeon hole of average, below average and above average.

Maybe we need to think of a better word that makes the everyday “average” sized person sound a little bit less “unexceptional” or “ordinary”.

I’ve always gone to great lengths to not follow the crowd, I want to be different, I run my life to the beat of my own drum. So don’t call me “normal” or “ordinary” please, I don’t want to be “average” and if you call me “common” I’ll smack you. A popular jean brand uses the word regular – that’s a little better, maybe we could make up a new word based on the combination of two words, one that describes the bland, sheer dullness of being a standard size and one that makes you feel great because you are that size. Here are some ideas. I can see them working well in retail environments already…

Regular – Awesome = Regulsome / Awereg

Moderate – Great = Modergreat

Amazing – Ordinary = Amazeord

Average – Perfect – Averperf / Perfaver (almost saying please in Italian)

It’s just a joke, but being described as average is dull. Don’t be dull, be you.

Thank God for Cushions…