I am Jan, St. Jan ...
I am Jan, St. Jan ...
How do I convey the history of the monumental buildings in the city to children in a playful way?
Giving the past a new future, that is the essence of this project. Roosendaal, the city where I come from, has a wide range of valuable historical buildings in the city. To convey this to children in a fun, playful and educational way, this is a prototype of a possible teaching method to do that.
It goes like this; There is a book containing the character Jan. This is the church on the Oude Markt and also the storyteller of his story. To bring this character to life, a hand puppet is included with the book. For every important event in history there are parts in the booklet that can be attached to the doll. In this way the children learn the history of the city in a playful way.
Would you like more information about this project? Please do not hesitate to contact us.
These are the photos that were used during the design process as a starting point for designing the character.
The design process was based on the Design Thinking method. In the ideate phase, there was still the idea of creating a walking route through the city along monumental buildings. The circles containing different logos were part of this idea.
After researching historical sources about the church, I started sketching. To what extent can you simplify the lines in a drawing while maintaining recognisability?
I experimented a lot to design the booklet that comes with the doll. Both with the appearance of the character and with the appearance of the booklet. Ultimately it became the right cover. Want to see the whole booklet? Look at the bottom of the page!
This project was also tested at a primary school in the Municipality of Roosendaal, in group 5/6. These children can already read independently, and also understand what to do with the doll.
The children were very enthusiastic about the idea and had many ideas to complement the concept. In short: it was a good test session.
Character St. Jan with different parts
Character St. Jan with different parts
I am very proud of this project, because all design phases in this project have been worked out well. It was a lot of fun to test in a class with children, this was the first time I did this. Children are very honest, but do give good feedback as a result.
