The Democracy of Design 

You’d be spoilt for choice when you know there are four people competing with each other just to make sure the most comfortable and stylish set of pajamas gets picked! In case you missed the action on the LA Magazine X TBô contest, here’s a bit of a recap and context: 

As you know, TBô is the first to introduce a community-led creation model for it’s products. The design is not made by one guy who decides what everyone else should wear. It’s carefully crafted with the ideas, opinions and suggestions of about half a million people on a first of it’s kind community platform where people discuss new product ideas and suggestions on “Rooms”. It’s like social media, but a nicer version of it where the folks in the community are valued for their feedback and thoughts. On a side note, much more happens in the community apart from new product ideas. People from all over the world come to discuss anything under the sun, right from sharing reviews of the product to talking about say...Movember or even mental health, the platform is a place to have great conversations. Now coming back to the main topic of our conversation here, let’s get back to it!

This started as a collaboration between LA Magazine and TBô where the spirit of democracy in decision making thrives. 4 Staff from the magazine gave their best designs for the community members, also known as “Tribe members” to decide what they liked best. 

There were all sorts of styles that poured into these designs, right from comfort being the center focus to looks taking over as the highlight of the design, the approaches to creating Pajamas roared with creativity. Take a look at this article to see what the other designs looked like. Right from the regular blacks, burgundies, the double colored pajamas and the foldable bright yellow ones gave the community members a tough time to decide. 

But well, there must be a winner and there certainly was. Let me tell you how the decision was made 

The Survey 

TBô always believes in community-led creation of products and it was not different this time. A survey was rolled out to the people of the Tribe who were asked to vote for their favorite design. After a few consistent weeks of gathering data on what the community wanted, the face-off was between two designs - Shelby’s and Mitch’s. The community-led decision was now getting tougher. 

The Finale 

After careful consideration of both the designs that made it to the finals, the community chose to go with Mitch’s simple yet classy and uber comfortable design, the deep maroon hue of burgundy was the real show stealer. The Tribe once again showed that comfort was above all else. 

At this point you might ask, what happens to this design? Well, like all other co-created products, this will also find it’s unique way into the TBô’s collection and may soon be a part of your wardrobe, if you wish to. I didn’t say it was good. A tonne of people chose this design to be the best. Well, when I say a tonne - I actually mean a number that’s close enough. TBô has more than 400,000+ people from all over the world who are a part of the community-led innovation, the first of it’s kind that TBô is proud to pioneer. 

It’s quite cool because what’s produced isn’t what one guy on top decided, it’s a continuous process that organises itself as a discussion on the “Community Rooms”, where the Tribe gets together to decide what they want. TBô merely brings to life the wants, suggestions and asks of the community.

Words by Sneha