Introduction to range design The design project V range design for semester VI is a project for designing toys for

r kids. The class began with an introduction to what is range design? along with the difference between the range and the collection; some of the differences are Range is a variation between upper and lower limits on a particular scale. Gender, price, fabric, functionality, etc Industrial in nature. It has different ideas and concepts. There is material variety in range design It may or may not be fashion concepts.

While a collection is collecting someone or something. There is a season for one time launch. It is a design term. Completion of the variety. Essential fashion concepts.

The basic design process that is followed is1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. Identify a need Design brief Tasks schedule Analysis of brief Research Specification Generate ideas Choose solution Develop solution Make solution Test solution Modify solution Evaluation

Toys were chosen in order to involve wider scope of technicalities and aesthetics in this project. Ideas were presented in the form of videos and presentation of various designers to inspire our thought in favour of toys. Inspiring personalities like Arvind Gupta and Yves Behar were given as an example for understanding the project much better. Usually toys are to be considered as a childish game or a product for a kid, whereas toy is an interactive product without any scope of hesitation or restrictions. The avenue of toys now is broader than was perceived. An industrial expert Mr Sandeep Mukherjee from Quetzel had visited to mentor and guide us through the design project of toys. The design process he followed for this project has been different from those of the processes we followed till date. As we had finally decided that it was going to be range of toys for kids up to the age of 8, we had jot down the adjectives of toys. [Playful, dynamic, exciting, friendly, fun, entertaining, colourful, educative, creative, comforting, technical, expressive, enjoyment, attractive, scientific, attention grabbing, funny, tactile, freedom, odour, movement, nostalgic, elastic, transforming, innovative, geometric, mobile, crazy, noisy, active, experience, cuddly, engaging, troublesome, festive, energetic, impactful, tiring, boredom, stress buster, eye-catching, addictive, repulsive, love, reflective, time pass, flow-y, challenging, amazing, story] In the same way adjective of kids were jot down and the adjectives are [curious, creative, pest, stubborn, best, naughty, independent, active, dependent, cute, irritating, funny, bubbly, fun-loving, cranky, innocent, moody, tantrum, dreamy, excited, emotional, dumb, creepy, smart, small, calm, wonder, sensitive, gift, sleepy, jumpy, annoying, chubby, adorable, charming, unbearable, soft, fascinating, squishy, beautiful, notorious, colourful, emotional, innovative, imaginative, distractive, playful, toothless, immature, destructive]. The next step in the process was segregating the adjectives of toys into groups of six, hence dividing the class into groups of six. The six themes are playful, tactile, entertaining, geometric, technical and festive and the theme given to us is entertaining. The group consists of Arpan Raj, Katta Charvee Reddy, Uttara Garg, Yakshit goel. The sub-words for the theme entertaining are 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Enjoyment Humorous Story Exciting Innovative Creative Addictive Active

Our first exercise as a group was to finalise any 6 adjectives of kids in reference with the theme entertaining. the adjectives in line of priority are 1. Naughty 2. Dreamy 3. Distractive

4. Curious 5. Emotion 6. Fascination The third step was to decide the material possibilities for the theme entertaining and they are as followed [glue, chewing gum, radium, smoke, bubble wrap, glass, clay, gel, elastic, water, mud\sand, fabric, fibre, plastic, spring steel, yarn, rubber, paper, metal wire, sponge]. The final six materials in order of priority are 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Radium Elastic Water Sand/mud Plastic Metal +(smoke)

Now! To begin with the range or for more understanding of the term toy, a list of material was given to the class and they are paper, eraser, metal, wood(pencil), plastic, fabric, plasticine/clay. And the task given was to create a small functional product which would serve as a toy for a kid that depicts the theme and its sub-words. The term entertaining means different for different people. When seen from the point of view of a child it is the freedom of his mind. A kid when asked to do something, unlike an elder, he wouldnt think of various ways of doing it but just do the way he knows it to be. The world of a child is different from the rest of us. They have their own fantasises and dreams and it was our task to reach the depths of his mind. For a naughty kid, entertaining is more of an interaction while that of a dreamy kid, it would be for all by himself. Sitting all alone and fantasising about his dream world would be it all for him. For a child with his innocent mind, everything seems like a game and thats how he entertains himself. Entertainment itself holds an emotional connection with the curious thought of any human mind and we tried to tap into that very emotion. A child with fresh knowledge and understanding has notorious thoughts which cause easy distraction or attraction towards entertaining in order to get fulfilment of his beliefs, fascination and playfulness. A kid with a curious mind is always in search of entertainment, which could be like asking his mom to narrate a story or having fun with friends, etc. Even a piece of joke could be entertaining for him for the rest of the day. A kid in his developing stage would want to conceive different things in different ways. They usually have an addictive distraction towards things that fascinate them and have got innovative ways of expressing themselves. Each kid is different. If listening to a story is entertainment for one, destruction could the same to another. Unlike us they would get bored of something if done every day, they always wish for new things, want to do different things, even a toy after few months would not seem as fascinating as it had seen before. Creating an interesting toy which would entertain a

combination of naughty, dreamy, distractive, curious, emotional and fascinating kid was the task for us. As a few materials were given to us, we had to decide what we were going to do with them that would be entertaining for a kid. The process ... It was 12:30 pm a sunny and windy day outside. And inside the class were we stuck with the thought What do we do? lets do something HOOOOLY said Arpan. HOLY! what are you are saying Arpan?? all of us screamed. No no no! said Charvee. I know what to do while we kept listening to each of our ideas she had something brewing in her mind about an elastic technique gun. Something like a small catapult, which when realised which would go and get stuck on the roof. Then said Yakshit oh oh oh like the Arjuns Machali ki aankh in the Mahabharata. Oh thats an interesting story exclaimed all of us. Uttara concludes Amazing! lets finalize this as it is culturally educative, as it is fun and mazedar and for sure entertaining

ConceptThe game has four shooters, each has a launcher. The launcher is basically a rolled paper with a rubber band wound around it. There is a horizontally split pencil with a small plastic parachute attached to it. Which when pulled with the rubber band on the launcher has to target a dream catcher hung on the roof. The task was to target the dream catcher while it is rotating. The concept matches with the characteristics of the kid i.e. naughty, dreamy and distractive. While the reason behind the parachute is that, when the kid releases the pencil and if it doesnt strike the dream catcher the parachute will be reason for it to come down in a dreamy way! That being the end of the brainstorming exercise we began making the concept into a prototype. The launcher is made from paper roll with an elastic rubber band in it. The parachute is made with polythene, tied with a yarn to a base which is a pencil and the dream catcher is made with a metal mesh with hangings on it for targeting as well as has a sound element to it. Acknowledgment We would like to thank our mentors of this design project V- Range Product of toys for guiding and making it interesting and successful. We would also like to give our special thanks to Mr. Sandeep Mukherjee for being our mentor.

2nd assignment After we finished with our crash assignment the next day we sat together in our class to further discuss upon our topic and take our process to the next stage with a new assignment to really understand the emotions related to a small child. We already had many adjectives for a child we got them down again we selected few of them to work upon those were: Curious Dependent Bubbly Innocent Sensitive Innovative

Then we decided various emotions we came up with various words that would a child toys can be related and at the end we came up with some emotions and six of them were selected and six groups were made and one emotion was given to each group and each group had to come up with a concept that would explain your emotion. Groups of four each were made, our group had Ridhi, Pankhuri, Uttara and myself Arpan Raj we got Love as our emotion and we had to explore the and come up with a concept for a child of 2-8 yrs old. First of all we four of us sat and did a mind mapping on Love and got down various words related to love in every context to a child like the love of parents or the love of a child towards anything. After we did this we discussed ad thought that the love we are trying to express here is a unconditional love add we again did a little mind mapping for it and got various tags for unconditional love they were: Attention Safe Togetherness Contentment Fascination

Then we took out words from the mind mapping of love and categorised them under each of the above words like: Attention: hugs, kisses, pets, friends, guests, tickling etc Safe: mother, grandparents, super heroes, warmth, light etc Togetherness: home, family, playing Contentment: rides, sweets, toys, sleep etc Fascination: fantasy, sand castle, balloons, gadgets etc

We chose safe as our main element as a child feels love only when he or she feels safe weather its father mother or any super hero or stories all these things give him a feeling of safety which creates a sense of unconditional love in the mind of a child. The next step was to think over various concepts keeping in mind all the key words, few concepts we came up with were: Projection stones: in which a stone kind of structure will project various stories on the walls of the room which give a feeling of belongingness to the child. Hugging speaking toys: soft toys with flexible rigid structure which can actually cuddle a small child and has a capability to speak. Wet blanket: it is basically a blanket which automatically takes the shape of your body giving you warmth. Holding Arms: In this concept we thought of a piece of cloth which will have a animal head on the top which would be little stiff and on the sides we have one hand and one leg, the basic use is that it can be use as a blanket to sleep or can be used as a mat to sit and see a television.

The final concept was basically a bed of a child in which the back of it had a flexible bone structure which can be made stiff or flexible, this mechanism is used so that the product becomes useful in both the ways, while sitting it can be made stiff and can be used as sitting mat with a rest and can be made flexible also to lie on it. It has paws pocket which will help a child to wrap the blanket around himself when he is feared at night, the material of the blanket is quiet flexible which will give a lot of comfort and warmth to the child. Extending it further we also added one more feature to it in which a pressure sensitivity button are place at various places which on pressing will play the recorded sound or other sounds or stories which will help the child in the night to sleep again. After this assignment was over we had to work in the same group for the final concept of the subject each group was given a set of words which were to be taken as the base for our products, the key words for my group were Adjective: Playful Emotion: Passion (same for every group) Client adjectives: Curious, dependent, innocent, innovative, sensitive. We now had to choose our age group we decide on the age group of 4-6 yrs, because we find lot of games in the category of below 3 yrs and above 6 or 7 yrs so we took this age group as this is the age group when a child learns while playing. To get better understanding of toys available in the market we did a market research visiting few shops nearby and finding out the type of toys in the shops for the age group of 4-6 yrs.

In our market research we went to various shops like sapphire and mom and me and other few local shops and we searched the toys for the age group of 4-6 yrs and we found out that the toys which were available were more of hand and eye coordination type which actually help the small child to conceive their senses. And there were few very simple toys like jewellery sets and kitchen sets for girls and other games which were the smaller versions of outdoor and indoor games like archery and pool. For boys they had games like darts and various types of guns and puzzles. They also had games for colour coordinations.