Learning Agreement (Ideas)

1) Promotional items using character design:

- notebooks, t-shirts etc. (The Pop Shop, Haze).

2) Vinyl Alphabet Characters appealing to children as well as adults:

- 26 collectables characters--> playing/learning cards with characters instead of 3D vinyl toys for children- these made as key-rings collectables for adults as well.

- limited edition punctuation marks.

- educational purpose?

- for children and adults--> like lego so can attach and detach letters to each other (magnets?)

- Key-rings of letter for people's first letter of names.

3) Animal hat designs:

- personalised and can customise.

- attach and detach parts.

- sew parts yourself.

Overall I didn't feel writing the learning agreement was a difficult task, it was just the thought of it that was off-putting. I was afraid that if I wasn't broad enough I wouldn't leave enough space for myself in the future if I wanted to alter any parts of my project. I didn't want to be vague but instead have a clear idea of the direction I was going in, although I had to be careful with the content I included so I could go back any time I wanted.

I was pretty set with designing alphabet characters on learning cards for children and then turning them into collectable vinyl toys for adults. Something that would bring back childhood memories when the child was older, a class toy. Like Lego which has now become a collectables.

Although after talk to one of my tutors about the idea, they reckoned I had set myself too big of a task to complete in just 12 weeks. I had suspicions that this was the case before my tutorial and decided it was time to put behind my obsession of creating collectable toys. Maybe just use that as research material for when I'm looking at character design.

Synopsis of Study

For my professional project I will be looking to design a set of learning cards for children to help them learn the alphabet. I will be looking to brand the product, package it as well as research how it would be displayed in a shop.

Initial research will include looking at how children absorb the surroundings around them, how they best take things in and how to maintain their interest and attention when teaching them. Visiting nurseries and primary schools or simply asking the teachers and looking at phonetics alphabets may be a good starting point for this area of the project. For the design of the learning cards I will need to research into the toys and learning materials that are suitable for young children, visually as well as physically (health and safety wise). I will visit shops like Mothercare and the Early Learning Centre to get a feel for the colours and typefaces used on their products. Other toyshops like The Entertainer will be visited to see the range of toys, the cartoon characters used to motivate the children to learn and what works well for different ages. From this I will t­hen look at learning cards that are already available for children and find out which style of cards are most successful and get the most customers.

The cards will either have a specific character to help and guide the children through the learning process or each letter in the alphabet will be a cartoon character designed to fit a graphic system. In order to do this I will need to look at character design from different cultures and decide which style would appeal to my target audience. I hope to dedicate some of my time to research Japanese character design because it has been an interest of mine since I was little but I have never had the chance look into it during previous projects. In addition a lot of Japanese characters appeal to both children and adults, so this would be a perfect opportunity to research why this is.

Looking at successful vinyl toys will further my character design research, these may include Munny, King Ken and Smorkin’ Labbits etc. I will then look to find out more about packaging to aid me with packaging my learning cards. In order to do this I will need to visit a number of toyshops and take a note of the materials and style of packaging found as well as photograph their shop displays.

After having a firm idea of what my designs will look like, I will show my work to my specified target audience and receive feedback in which I will use to further my developments.

The reasons behind doing this project is because I believe it is important that parents have an understanding as to what toys are appropriate and should be introduced to their children. It is also necessary for them to have an interest in the toys themselves so they would want to buy it and spend quality time with their children. I need to research the relationship between parent and child when interacting with learning materials and find out what of a product attracts a parent to buy it for their child and what’s appropriate in terms of the packaging and information provided on the packaging.