Now this was an interesting project for me. I was prototyping the Jónófón project (15/30), making laser cut parts, and it was quite expensive. The guy that had the laser-cutting-service also produced flat-pack toys which he sold in his shop, so we made a deal - I would design something for his store instead of getting laser cut prototypes.
He only had boy-targeted toys (planes, trucks etc) as his own boys co-designed the toys with him - and therefore wanted something more aimed toward girls. So I decided to design a flat-pack doll house. Now, as a designer you need to be able to put yourself in other peoples shoes, as you are never only designing for yourself. I was not a girl (at the time?), I was not a kid and I had never owned a dollhouse. But I had owned loads and loads of LEGO - and those things are just not that far apart from each other. You build it. You play with it.
Now I could have interviewed bunch of kids to create a target group and so on.. but this wasn’t that kind of a project. A house is a house. The only thing that matters is ‘how’ you play with it. So I just took on this project aiming to create a nice architectural structure, which looked like a cozy little house - that you could assemble using 104 parts of wood, some glue and then paint if you wanted!
As I’ve probably mentioned in my previous posts most of my products are designed as flat-pack. I usually do it because it’s better for the environment (if the product takes less space you don’t ship air between places) - for logistics reasons (it’s both simpler to store and cheaper to ship) - and for production purposes (production is often (not always) simpler if parts are not assembled in a factory but by the end user, this also cuts down cost of a product). Then again I also just enjoy the challenge. Designing something for an end user to assemble creates restrictions in the design process which I like. I also like assembling products in general - so just dm me if you need help assembling your IKEA kitchen, it’s noooo problem. So this was a fun project, although the time spent designing the doll house and the payment of a few laser cut parts didn’t necessarily match.
When the product was finished I got two dollhouses for myself which I gave to the only two girls in my life at that time (that were children) to play around with.
You can actually still buy it at geislar.is !
