S.o.S

Last year we had problem during our brainstorming for our final. So we listed everything we like and spotted our common likes. We didn’t use that concept at the end but it was a good icebreaker and a starting point for brainstorming.

Later I realized that I worked on something similar at the beginning of the semester, which lead me to a realization that I love new things; something being created or discovered.
Especially kids are very fun to watch when they are playing with something new. I worked with kids who were likely to be diagnosed with autism, but recovered later on. The aim it was to get the child to know different personalities and get socialized easily. It wasn’t that long but still I really find it very interesting how different they interpret with toys and systems. Once a 3 year old kid was playing with a lego and all of a sudden he stopped and asked
“Why is this called a Lego?” Usually kids tend to have those “why? Why? But why?” moments a lot but this one led to something else.
“Because the brand named that toy Lego”
“But why? Why is it not called "Gofa" but Lego? Why L E G O is related with this thing?”
It blew my mind how this kid related to a very basic topic of Semiotics.


So I started researching about child psychology and learning:
As a starters point I picked up Sophie’s World: there it suggests that the purest form of a philosopher is a child because she / he is not exposed to the whole world of learning and can look at everything with a objective point of view.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/children/
http://www.otizm.org
http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/
http://www.crafttoys.com/toys.html

“A variety of colors creates excitement, however, certain colors
stimulate the brain to associate colors with certain objects at an early stage in development. Most parents pretend that it is okay as "artistic or self expression" for children to color grass pink or cows purple. Deep down inside, the parent usually feels uneasy or uncertain that their child is "learning" or understanding reality properly.” Karen D. Hill

As for my concepts, I would like to stick to my interests I listed earlier and add some more on to them:

Here are my interests: Sociology, Semiotics, Psychology, Technology, Interactivity, Physical Computing. Interestingly, these topics are based on more than one person. Well most of them are.

Perception, “Learning”, lack of verbal language (inspired by Carolina). As a kid who grew up bilingual, I find myself lucky and unlucky at the same time. Lucky in the sense that I can understand both languages (as much as I can), unlucky because I can not translate one language to the other.

Design elements: Color, size, shape, texture.

Target Audience: Children. (with disorders: autism + dyslexia ?)

Well, when all of these come together, they lead me into a specific direction: toys/games… Interesting..