In a recent episode of Abstract: The Art of Design, toy designer Cas Holman explains how the best education comes from open-ended play — times to explore when there’s no right or wrong. No instructions that lead to a pre-determined outcome or goal. Instead of trying to learn a specific skill in a standardised way, we should follow what makes us curious. In this way, children grow agency and confidence. Creative adults need a dose of this same growth through play.
The best education comes from open-ended play — times to explore when there’s no right or wrong.
But the busyness of success gets in the way. Budgets, deadlines, and agile sprints rarely allow the opportunity for extraneous design exercises that help us stumble upon unexpectedly better solutions. It’s all too easy to get lazy and reuse proven design patterns or fallback to your comfort zone when deadlines are looming; to follow the data and shut out the chance for risk-free play and unique expression. You have to pick and choose your battles for when to push for innovation or stretch your boundaries of style, because rarely does a perfect project come along that has the time and budget to afford the luxury of open-ended experimentation. The rigour of the modern product design landscape is extinguishing chances for play.
