Our graduate Lara Divriş’s graduation project won the second place in “Design for Children” competition

Lara Divriş, a 2019 graduate of BİLGİ Industrial Design Department, won the second place in the “Design for Children’’ competition with her graduation project, OCTOP. In the competition, led by Kartell and Domus Academy, Divriş was rewarded with a 50% scholarship for the Product Design master's program from Domus Academy.

In the internationally-renowned competition, rather than focusing on designing a piece of furniture, participants’ challenge was to develop a fun and elegant object that children can play with. The participants of the competition were asked to use plastic as the material and to integrate technology and materials into a remarkable design solution for kids.

About the project

The project was designed as a graduation project, on the 2019 Spring semester with the mentorship of Yeşim Kunter and the Graduation Project team at the Department of Industrial Design. More about the project is below with the introduction of Divriş: 

OCTOP is an open-ended stackable toy set, that aims kids to use their imaginations, explore and create limitless games. Beginning to my process, I constantly organized and volunteered in play dates also made a deep search about gross, fine and deep motor skills. I gathered the learning outcomes of 3 to 5-year-old children and my playdate outcomes in a 5 pieced toy set and 8 balls. Every piece is proportioned with the balls, which is the most basic shape. The color codes and the footprints help children to stack the pieces while obtaining new motor skills. As the toy appeals to a varied age range, it can be used for many years while children not losing interest in it. That’s how the toy sustains itself for years while many toys get out of popularity or do not suit the age range anymore. Each toy in this set is designed with many details and every detail has multiple play potentials. More than any of us can imagine because every individuality sees a different thing out of them. The outcome creates a fun and open-ended play for children.