Mix & Match Couches
As a designer I am very passionate about toy and game design, but my college curriculum doesn’t include practice in this field. Thus as a personal project to obtain practice and experience in the field I created and prototyped a set of couches for Barbie-size dolls that can be mixed and matched.
In the initial concept ideation process I came up with a few different design ideas, but in the end, I decided to make my first ideation of the Mix & Match couches travel-themed. I found that this central theme helped keep my idea more refined and flow seamlessly.
With the travel theme, I decided to have each couch/set take place in different major cities. The cities I choose were Paris, New York, and Tokyo as a way to showcase a wide variety of cities across the globe.
The Mix & Match mechanism, which will allow children to change the seat and backrests of the couch, works with a lock and key system. To take the couch apart simply slide the couch to the right and pull up, and to attach and insert a new back piece simply line up the key with the holes and slide to the left.
Prototyping:
As a way to test this mix & match system, and see what the couches would look like as products, I create a couple of rough porotypes. Each prototype was designed in CAD (Rhino 6), 3D printed, and hot glued together.
During this process, I ran into a couple of problems. The two big problems I had were getting the measurements of the lock and key system right, and mechanical failure during the print because the filament would snap. While these were easy fixes, they made the prototyping process take longer than anticipated to complete. Below are the 3D printed models of the New York and Paris Couches.
To go along with each couch’s travel I created a set of barbie dolls with matching accessories. To keep the sets even, each has the same amount and type of components. These toys include a Barbie doll, suitcase, pet, Mix & Match couch, pillow, lamp, food souvenir, and travel sticker.
Paris-
For this set I wanted to stick with pastel colors and was inspired by all of the iconic Parisian scenery.
New York-
With this set, my main inspiration was city life, skyscrapers, and the skyline. Taking from my inspiration I wanted this set’s color pallet to match the city with lots of gray/steel and pops of yellow/orange.
Tokyo-
Because Tokyo is such a colorful city, for this set I really wanted to emphasize the bright and neon colors. I was really inspired by Tokyo street fashion, kawaii, and billboards.
Below are some future iterations, and other design concepts, for the couches.
