DI: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
: Making something so simple that, at the same time, could enable the user to do great things. The aim is to spark creativity and imagination with a timeless, straightforward design.
DI: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
: id.real wanted to go beyond what has been on the beach toys market for the past 50 years; designing something different, that would be both a toy with which kids could have fun and “tools” to use their imagination and creativity while learning. All these, making parents’ life easier with toys easy to transport and storage.
DI: What are your future plans for this award winning design?
: Going into Kickstarter, starting the production the last trimester of 2018 and going to Spielwarenmesse International Toy Fair Nüremberg 2019. Basically, our aim is to make Kebrick available for children worldwide to enjoy and learn at the beach!
DI: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?
: In this particular project, id.real needed seven months to design and test Kebrick.
DI: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?
: It was the result of our personal experiences with this particular kind of product. This leads us in a quest to find new solutions to products that have been the same for a long time.
DI: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?
: The idea is to get resources using crowdfunding platforms and/ or find investors in order to produce and sell Kebrick ourselves and create enough revenue to keep revolutionizing the field.
DI: What made you design this particular type of work?
: Our CEO and Chief of Innovation, Anouk de Lesparda, was at the beach in Cambodia when she realized all the children have the same kind of toys, and those toys are really difficult to keep and transport for the parents. She identified a need and began to think of ways to solve it. Afterward, the whole team was immersed in the creative process contributing and giving their insights.
DI: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?
: The main influence has been the daily experience as parents and the memories of our days as kids in the beach.
DI: Who is the target customer for his design?
: Children from five years old onwards and their parents. However, it can also be a tool for creative people older than five but with a young spirit!
DI: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?
: These “shapes” are unique because you can assemble and disassemble them and create as many forms as you want to. The regular molds in the market have fixed shapes.
DI: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?
: We did a co-design session with all the people involved in the project. During the session, we mixed two significant words for the toy: Kep (the beach at Cambodia, where the original idea was born) and Brick (the first name the project received because it reminds us to a construction brick).
DI: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?
: We worked following the Design Thinking philosophy; using tools such as co-design sessions, user testing sessions, interviews with experts and users, prototyping-testing-improving process. Also, we used more common design tools, like physical prototypes, digital prototypes, renders.
DI: What is the most unique aspect of your design?
: It is simple and yet it is a powerful tool for kids to be creative.
DI: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?
: We tested with users and experts (teachers, psychologists, parents, children…) during all the design process.
DI: What is the role of technology in this particular design?
: There is no technology in this design, though we are working on adding it in the following phases. After all, we are in the great pursuit of the integration of physical and digital: phygital.
DI: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?
: Yes, we did a wide research at the beginning and during the project about children, their learning process, cognitive development, materials, market research.
DI: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?
: It was really hard to design the joints because we needed them to be easy to assemble and disassemble for kids but resistant enough to keep the sand inside, avoiding the sand to get stuck inside the joints. All while making possible matching them in different ways to create all kinds of shapes. We also had some problems during the production part when we had to find a balance between design, production methods and users needs.
DI: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?
: We think that innovative design should be shared with the greater audience. One of the good things about design contests is that they give designers and studios the opportunity to present their proposals to the world and make people aware of the new trends in our society.
DI: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?
: id.real put in practice the Design Thinking and user-centric design philosophy in a project for the first time. We learned a lot about our users (both children and parents) while paying attention to their needs, desires, and expectations. At the same time, we understood the importance of following all the steps of developing products: research, concept development, technical development and production methods -always keeping in sight the purpose of the project.
DI: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?
: id.real is willing to engage with users, fans, professionals, and anyone interested in design… we are eager to create new adventures hand in hand with you. So, anytime you are in Madrid, don’t be shy, come and say ‘hi’, share a cup of Joe and let’s design the next best thing together!