Tibor Uhrín
The students at the design department at the Faculty of Arts, University of Technology in Košice (headed by the author of the article) were tasked during the winter term with doing the project called Homo ludens (a playing human being). They were asked to design a toy. Initially, the students were not prompted to define objectives and target group. Majority of toys are designed by experimenting with materials, animal-like shapes, mechanisms, physical properties and various combinations of above elements. When the students defined the theme, they specified the objective a toy should have had. Designing a toy is a perfect task to prepare students for far more complex problems a designer may encounter in their professional work. The theme allows sufficient creative freedom to employ fantasy, examine materials and their combinations, especially during the initial phase of creative process. The theme we assigned is, naturally, more suitable for creative individuals with the feeling for materials and artistic expression.