Project One: Rationale

Through personal experience and observations, it’s quite clear that most, if not all children between the ages of five and twelve years are at some point unorganised and messy. This can be attributed to the fact that children find ‘clean-up time’ laborious and un-entertaining. After all, what child wants to experience the painful hardships associated with clean-up time? Especially after they have just been through the emotional highs associated with exploring their creativity and freedom.

A major concern during my childhood, and many others was the fact that we would lose pencils constantly after drawing or colouring in. This often resulted in packs of pencils depleting at an alarming rate, which resulted in children begging their parents to buy more supplies to compensate for the lack of organisation. To combat this problem, I have developed a ‘fun’ and ‘pleasurable’ way to store pencils.  The rationale behind my theory was that children would be more inclined to clean up if we made the experience seem less laborious and more entertaining. This notion was influenced by Volkswagen’s initiative entitled ‘The Fun Theory’ whereby they experimented to see whether people would be more inclined to take the stairs rather than the escalators if they made it fun (in this case making it like a piano). It turned out to be a very successful promotion with 66% more people than normal choosing the stairs over the escalators, therefore Volkswagen came to the conclusion that ‘fun can obviously change behaviour for the better’.

My final idea encompassed a pencil holder shaped as an echidna, with the pencils acting as the ‘spikes’ to help form it’s shape. I also added a detachable pencil sharpener at the front of the body, as I believed that this utensil could be beneficial, as it helps to bring together two related and necessary pieces of equipment that would benefit the users. After trialling numerous variations in form, I decided upon an ‘organic’ and ‘free flowing’ body that would resemble the shape of an echidna, yet not make it too obvious. The reason behind my decision was that I did not just want this product to be a ‘one hit wonder’; I wanted it to have some sentimental value, such as it being handed down from generation to generation and becoming an heirloom within a family.

This reasoning also lead me to choose ‘rubberwood’ (also referred to as White Mahogany) as the material of use. Rubberwood makes use of plantation trees that have already served a useful function, hence as it is a byproduct and plentiful, it is cheap. This ultimately helps to lower resource costs, which in turn can be passed down to the consumer and marketed as an ‘environmentally friendly’ wood. The colour I used was a ‘burnt orange’. I wanted something that was playful, yet would stand out in a cluttered mess. It also helps to emphasise the natural nature of the shape. The earthly tone has a connection with the echidna, whose natural habitat is in bush land. The paint was non-toxic which was a necessity considering it would mainly be used by children, who at times tend to put objects they shouldn’t their mouths.

The size of the pencil holder was intended to be a bit larger than traditional pencil holders. Because there were essentially two components in the design (the body and the sharpener) the product had to be large enough so as not to choke a child if they put it in their mouth. Having large pieces also makes it easier to spot, especially in a cluttered room or desk where it is intended to be used. Twelve holes for the pencils were also purposely done, as most packs of pencils I researched came in a ‘convenient’ pack of twelve, which seemed to be an ideal number.