Category:The Toy Project (Greater Brighton MET 2018)

Paper Dragon, photo: Ayla Pilsworth [image info]

Marble Run, photo: Ayla Pilsworth [image info]

Ray Guns, photo: Ayla Pilsworth [image info]

The Toy Project is a project by Greater Brighton Metropolitan College's Art and Design Foundation Course students.

The project researched, designed and produced a set of toys using traditional materials (wood, metal, card). In order to approximate a realistic client/designer environment, the students were kept in isolated groups, switched around between different tasks on different sub-projects, and given a final deadline, after which the results would be put on display at Brighton Toy and Model Museum.

The displays are scheduled to be on view between 17th April 2018 and 19th May 2018.

Handout text:

The Toy Project

3D Design students from the Art and Design Foundation Course at Greater Brighton Metropolitan College have been working on a project to design a range of new and exciting toys.
The Toy Project aimed to give the students the opportunity to experience a real client scenario, with strict deadlines and an evolving brief. The project ran over two weeks and students had a relatively short amount of time to complete the project. The journey of the project and the high standard of outcomes has helped to build the students confidence in sharing and presenting written, verbal and visual information and has developed their team working and practical making skills.
The students began working individually by researching existing toys and developing a range of ideas from this information. The students had valuable research time at the Brighton Toy and Model Museum where Deputy Museum Manager Jan Etches showed a variety mechanisms and hand-crafted toys.
The design brief asked for the toys to include some form of movement and/or sound. The toys also needed to be constructed from, or consist of, at least four different components. The brief also asked the students to be aware of who the end- user would be and the health and safety associated with the materials, the design and the surface finish.
The project included unexpected twists keeping the students 'on their toes' in order to simulate what it can be like to work with a real client on a live brief.
After each student had developed their toy designs, they were then placed into teams of approximately four. The teams reviewed the initial individual designs and selected what they felt was the one design that fitted the design brief best and could be manufactured within the time scale. The Toy Projects short deadline and live brief meant that the students had to work efficiently in teams, make quick decisions and comprise, all important skills for professional work. In teams they then spent three days developing the chosen design to a more resolved conclusion and produced prototypes and detailed drawings. The finished design needed to be clearly communicated through drawings and models and ready for manufacturing so that it could be consistently produced over a number of units.
In the second week of The Toy Project the brief changed again. The teams presented their resolved designs and prototypes to the whole of the 3D group, their design drawings and models were then passed to another team who were given the task to manufacture four identical copies of the same components to create a three-dimensional realisation of the other teams design. From hand-over each team was not able to communicate with one another until the manufacturing stage was complete. The final stage of the project was to present the toys back to the team which had designed them, determining if their designs had been successfully communicated and produced.
Below is a brief description of some of the thinking behind some of the designs in the show. There are also examples of sketchbooks showing the design development stages and the design drawings.

Photo Credit: MET-supplied photography is by Ayla Pilsworth.