Ya know, it's remarkably fascinating looking at those interviews Dr. Lava posted and seeing how the Gen 5 Pokemon were designed and the thought process behind them. Gen 5 is my personal favorite Pokemon generation so far and it's interesting seeing how many of the Pokemon were designed (no Krookodile or Scolipede talk from what I can see though :( )
My favorite design process mentioned in that interview is oddly enough, that of the elemental monkeys. Knowing they are designed to be Pokemon who can cook actually makes them even more interesting in my mind, even if they were designed around Cilan, Chili, and Cress. I just love imagining the prospect: seeing Pansage go out and gather+prepare some amazing vegetables for the dishes, Panpour preparing the water for the cooking, and Pansear setting up the flame to actually cook and heat the dishes: it's perfect! Especially in the context of the Striaton Gym, which is a restaurant, I can only imagine the monkeys themselves being the chefs that cook the dishes, and then Cilan, Chili, and Cress serving as the waiters who communicate with their Pokemon and later the monkeys give the triplets the prepared dishes for them to give to the customers. The imagery is absolutely perfect and I love it! It's especially further reinforced by the monkeys appearing in X and Y, where they are used by none other than the chefs at the Lumiose Fine Dining restaurants. Imagine all those fine dining restaurants in Lumiose, and when people go to them, the chefs have the elemental monkeys serve up the dishes, and also battle the Trainers while those nicely cooked up meals are waiting to be ready. It's so perfect!
Even better is that they mention that the monkeys have distinct personalities and that the evolved forms were made to emphasize that. Yeah, I can totally see it:
"Pansage is a bit of a punk". Hell yeah it is, and it shows with Simisage. Look at that rad hairdo, those delinquent like mannerisms, and just the way this Pokemon shows off. And look at that thumbs up it's giving! This bad boy is rad af!
"Pansear is carefree". Yep, look at Simisear. Shrugging, giving off a nonchalant look, and that movement. It's just going "yeah, life is good, of something happened? Eh, life's great man!". It's so carefree and easygoing and it shows.
"Panpour is gentle, or some might say smug". Look at Simipour. It might look a bit smug, but it's sitting there with a nice look and it's waving it's hand constantly like it's saying hi!
I didn't really care much about the monkeys, but after looking at and reading about the design process behind them I've warmed up to them quite a lot.
Another interesting tidbit is seeing how difficult it was to design the Oshawott line, and the overall process of distinguishing the three starters in each generation.
Another fascinating one is the Timburr line, which were specifically designed around construction workers. It's emphasized heavily in the games too since construction workers in BW, XY, and Sword and Shield all use the Timburr line, and the dex entries talk about Timburr loving construction work, and Gurdurr excelling at demolition. I can only imagine how these Pokemon alongside Copperajah and Gigalith work with construction workers to help out on those projects. They would probably come off as incredibly obnoxious to the people nearby though, much like construction workers IRL.
But in any case, the monkeys and the Timburr line are some of the fascinating standouts because their designs clearly function around interaction with people and helping them out: and one of BW1's main themes is the relationship between people and Pokemon, and those Pokemon in particular were designed in a way that really shows that and I like those lines for that.