Dealing with children is a serious matter and the Toy Design is not a game, even if it has to do with the toys.
This design disciplineIn fact, it involves important and often even lengthy research into the little ones, what they are looking for, how they behave, what may be useful for their growth or knowledge of the outside world, all in complete safety.
Toy design: a cultural approach.
The first thing a Toy Designer must do to design a toy is to start with cultural values. Designing a children's toy may require different ways depending on the country, the culture, as well as the age of the child.
Toy design: a cultural approach.
The approach to toy design is also always multidisciplinary, since it involves very different skills:
- creative capacity
- humanistic skills
- technical and design skills
- content creation and marketing skills
The toy: a creation for the little ones.
The toy has an educational and developmental value in the child's growth. This is why it is far from trivial and indeed requires detailed study, also involving professional psychologists and scholars of the natural course of development of the child's cognitive faculties.
Playing means getting to know the world, learning to relate to others and within a space made up of things and people, it means, in a word, acquiring self-awareness and awareness of oneself in relation to others, experiencing the world.
To be an excellent Toy Design projectthe toy will have to pass certain evaluation 'criteria', such as:
- durability over time
- washability
- must guarantee safety in its use
- stimulate the child's creativity
- be inspired by the specific needs of the youngest
The Italian Design Institute specialisation course in Toy Design presents a programme addressing the following macro-themes:
- How a toy is born
- Concept development
- The creative error
- How to prototype and make a toy
- The mathematical element in games
Each of these themes then provides a specific in-depth study.
The course includes several didactic phases:
- Introductory lessons with teaching materials and platform with video lessons
- face-to-face lessons lasting 32 hours
- Project work with the realisation of an individual project
Furthermore, an important aspect of the IDI courseis the Partnership with a special guest of the course, the children's writer and illustrator Gabriele Clima, author of books translated into 15 languages. With 'IL SOLE FRA LE DITA' he won the 2017 Andersen Prize for the best book for children over 15.
