Famous for his big banana feet, the Big Yin has recently faced his own string of health issues.
Now Billy Connolly, who has Parkinson's disease, has played a role in highlighting the often-overlooked abilities of people living with dementia to help improve the way objects and buildings are designed.
A project involving a group of people diagnosed with early onset dementia saw them explore their creative side to see how they might contribute to various design tasks.
Part of the project involved them viewing Glasgow’s trail of Billy Connolly murals in the hope it might ignite memories and discussion.
The murals by John Byrne, Jack Vettriano and Rachel Maclean, led the group from the Glasgow Dementia Resource Centre to The People’s Palace – currently closed for refurbishment – to seek out the Big Yin’s best known prop, his famous big banana feet.
Inspired, they went on to create a series of colourful and quirky patterns which were turned into printed textiles for cushions, bags and lampshades which were sold to raise money for Alzheimer Scotland charity.
Researchers say the way they responded to design challenges and took inspiration from a range of sources including the Billy Connolly murals, suggested that rather than losing abilities, they were able to offer positive and inventive contributions.
And it’s led them to conclude that people with dementia have more to offer when it comes to design tasks than might have previously been thought.
As a result, they argue, people living with dementia should have more power and creative freedom in collaborative design projects, particularly in areas that directly affect them such as healthcare settings.
Dr Euan Winton, a design expert at Heriot-Watt University’s School of Textiles and Design in Galashiels in the Scottish Borders, who has family experience of dementia, led the project.
He has now proposed a framework that outlines how people living with dementia might be able to collaborate in the design of products and places such as health and community settings, to better support their daily needs.
Colour, pattern and design are important for people living with dementia as they can feel disorientated or confused about what they see.
Using particularly bold colours and patterns can help them better identify furniture like lamps, chairs and beds, while contrasting colours can help objects stand out.
It’s particularly important in dining situations: research at Boston University found that people with dementia eat 24% more food, and drink 84% more liquid when it’s served in brightly coloured cups.
The Heriot-Watt project has led to one Scottish business involved in producing items used by people with cognitive impairments, such as cutlery, to include people with dementia in the design process.
The university researchers have spent more than six years working with people diagnosed with early onset dementia.
They have designed projects and services including printed textiles, ceramics, tabletop gardens, lighting, travel postcards, sculptural signage for a community allotment and a photo scanning service.
Dr Winton says it shows people with dementia can make positive contributions to collaborative design projects.
Collaborative design – shortened to co-design – sees communities and groups work with professional designers and is a growing field in settings including health, community development, innovation, public sector and charities.
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But there are huge variations in the extent to which participants are involved in these projects, Dr Winton argues.
His research paper, The co-design participatory power pyramid, formally defines these different levels of involvement and illustrates them as a pyramid with four layers – ‘to’, ‘for’, ‘with’ and ‘by.’ ‘To’ is at the base of the pyramid and ‘by’ is at the top.
He says: “Good collaborative design is about helping people play a significant role in rethinking things that inform or shape their lives.
“And really that should mean you’ve collaborated on more than 50% of the project.
“Your thoughts, your actions, your ideas and the content you generate is important and you should have quite a bit of agency in making changes.
“We see a lot of co-design projects being done to, for or with participants.
“But the most empowering model is co-design ‘by’ – when designs for products or services are generated entirely by people living with dementia.
“It’s about reinforcing the idea that people need to be recognised for what they can do, recognised for having rights and that they should be listened to.”
His maternal and paternal grandmothers both had dementia. The mother of research co-author Paul Rodgers, Professor of Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management at the University of Strathclyde, also had dementia.
Dr Winton's research involved working on collaborative design projects with around 20 members of the Glasgow Dementia Resource Centre aged between their 40s and 60s and who had been diagnosed with early onset dementia.
The research included walking tours and visits to museums and art galleries with people living with dementia, to get ideas for designs.
“One of the very first conversations I had was with a man who said he used to quite like photography, but no one would give him a camera these days,” Dr Winton adds.
“I replied – that's the first thing I'm going to do when we go out walking. You’re all going to have cameras – and will be collecting the images and things that inspire you.”
The research, which involved working with a dementia group in Edinburgh, generated 15 design projects including the printed textiles inspired by Billy Connolly, ceramic plates with face designs inspired by the popular ‘floating head’ exhibit at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow and a decorative light inspired by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, made with coloured lighting gels.
The groups also took inspiration from the outdoors to create tabletop gardens, and a sign for Bellahouston Park Allotments in Glasgow.
The project, which saw some products sold in a pop-up, was said to have boosted “self-belief,” “free thinking” and a “stronger sense of capability, belonging and independence” among participants who often expressed a “sense of disbelief” at what they had achieved.
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Dr Winton’s research paper concluded that people living with dementia should be involved as much as possible in as many stages of the design process as possible.
These stages include background research; developing the product design brief based on customer needs; generating ideas and concepts; developing technical drawings and prototypes and then detailed design, incorporating exploration of materials and manufacturing techniques.
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