Play 'n Store

A range of small storages designed to keep children engaged and spark their creativity in the small space of their individual homes during the pandemic of Covid-19.

The project was executed from Feb-March 2021 as a part of my industry project at Boingg!, a kid's furniture and décor company based in Gurugram, Haryana, India. It taught me that a designer not only has to design, but has to design keeping in mind the consumer, the brand and most importantly the cost of production.

Design Process

Market Research

Given the fact that the buyers are parents even though the intended users are kids, products are designed in a manner attractive to kids but worthy enough for the purchase by parents

Need

Children centric products with an educational value, worthy of investment.

The Impact of Covid-19

Children being confined to their homes and increased digital consumption is leading to hampered learning from

- Peer-to-peer activities

- Outdoor Play

Kids

Parents working from home, making it hard to keep children engaged all the time

Parents

Economic hardships due to decreased business or salary cuts.

Gap Identification

Products keeping kids engaged and occupied through creative ways as a way of encouraging open-ended learning.

Products appealing enough to break away from the digital centric lifestyle - encouraging physical engagement of the mind over solely digital consumption.

A piece of furniture rather than any installations on the wall to keep the expenses to a minimum and increase interaction with the user.

To design pieces of furniture which are small, visually attractive and physically engaging to educate and engage children at home. Some of the characteristics of the furniture pieces are

Hands-on

Fidgety

Interactive

Colourful

Engaging

Creative

Safe

Inspiration and Research

Indoor Playground

Integrating playground elements into the home to keep kids occupied in small spaces. The pandemic has turned living rooms into indoor play yards, with pieces designed to double as both furniture and play.

Creative Play

Captivating attention and entertaining kids indoors with floor, wall and ceiling designs that encourage play, enable personalisation and spark creativity.

Inclusive Design

Designing items inclusive across gender, race and ability.

Sensory Walls

Sensory walls designed specially for autistic kids or kids on the spectrum focus on using tactile materials to enhance their learning through touch and feel. These walls are tailor-made for fidgety kids with shorter attention spans, enabling their learning through interaction.

Furniture that doubles as Play & Learning

Though the concept of sensory walls emerged as a need of playful and effective learning for neurodivergent kids, it has been adapted to be used in spaces that need to keep children's minds captivated and occupied - e.g. a clinic's waiting room, nurseries and playschools.

This project aims to bring the same concept inside the house. It revolves around giving the child's (3-6 years of age) brain some colourful and playful activities to spark creativity and enable open-ended learning through something that they would interact with everyday - their toy storages.

Ideations

Prototypes

Through and through grooves in an 18mm pre-laminated board with a knob. Discarded as open grooves defeated the purpose of a closed storage, exposed hardware and increased labour due to more splinters in a thicker board.

Exploring the movement of the knob through the path.

Two separate 9mm boards used. Through and through grooves were cut on the front side while a solid board with
a border was attached at the back. Resulting design was unstable near the narrow spaces.

6mm board easier for finishing is used here. Top most layer of the door panel.

6mm board with wider grooves than the topmost layer used as the backboard, to ensure the groove follows its path. 6mm spacer used between the paths to give the ease of movement for the knob.

Final door panel consisting of 3x6mm pre-laminated boards, with knob attached. Support attached near the thinner areas.

Print Explorations

Dog 'n the bone

Fun prints and colours that would work with the existing materials used by the brand were finalised.

Lost In the City

The dog travels through the city to find his bone.

Knobs

Groove Path

Through the Park

The dog travels through the park to find his bone.

Treasure Island

A game

Meant for two or more people - follow the instructions given by the characters on the print, and then open the door.

Arrows

To guide the knobs along the path.

Knob Placement

A simpler version - place the knob on the appropriate colour on the door to find the easiest way to open it. This was the finalised version.

Knobs

Product Gallery

treasure island iso with grooves_edited.jpg

User Scenario

The prints and knobs are designed in such a manner that rather than having only one correct action, it encourages the kids to find the best possible solution.

Because it is a practical experience and one of self-learning, it would be more impactful leading to increasing the retaining the capacity.

This concept of interactive furniture was also used in other furniture pieces like loft beds.