Young Designers 2011

		Young Designers 2011
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Purvee Jain | jainpurvee@gmail.com

To Design a Storytelling Kit for Preschoolers using Soft Material

Toy and Game Design | PGDPD
Guide: Gayatri Menon
Sponsor: Smart Playthings Pvt. Ltd., Noida

Keywords
Storytelling
Pre-school
Language skill
Unstructured play

Nowadays, pre-schoolers are often forced to learn things they are supposed to be learning in the higher classes. This affects their natural learning process. Children prefer to explore and experiment with things — by touching, smelling, tasting, hearing and testing them. The storytelling kit I designed during the course of this project will help them learn, think and speak, without being overbearing.

For my research, I visited different schools and talked to the teachers and parents of pre-schoolers. I also studied the available play materials. A design language for the storytelling kit evolved. Initial concepts were followed by a mood board and rough models. Keeping ergonomics and the feedback in mind, the concepts were revisited and modified. Prototypes of three concepts i.e. sequencing cards, cube tales and story mat were made and the feedback from user-testing was incorporated in the final prototypes.

I made three play items from different materials. They included a set of sequencing cards called The Story Teller, cube tales (four plastic cubes with illustrations on all the faces) and the story mat called In the Jungle (story mat, animal soft toys and their packaging). The illustrated cards revealed different themes i.e. jungle, underwater and space to help children create their own stories and build their imagination.

As a designer, this experience taught me how to balance fun with effectiveness. By taking decisions independently and dealing with the client at various stages of the project, I have gained confidence in my abilities. The project also provided me with an opportunity to work with different materials and approaches. How a unique play experience for a child can be created was the most important thing I learnt from this project.