Nature to Nurture

Nature has been a source of inspiration for many disciplines. Nature provides abundant opportunities for learning and inspiration. This article investigates the use of natural toys as a source of inspiration for toy design. An exploratory survey (n = 76) indicated that there was low awareness about natural toys like Delonix regia sepals, Nilgiris seeds, and Maple seeds, whereas common play objects like sand, pebbles, and Mimosa pudica were widely recognized. This gap motivated the development of the Nature to Nurture (N2N) toolkit, a toolkit that would inspire toy designer students to take inspiration from natural toys. N2N consists of three linear stages: creative exercises (shake it loose), field visit (into the wild), and cards (harvest ideas). In the final stage, cards had four categories: inspiration, design principles, mechanics, and classification. The toolkit was implemented by fourth-year design students (n = 20) in the module Toy Design. Qualitative and quantitative analyses showed positive results of the N2N toolkit. Ninety-eight percent of the participants reported that the toolkit supported exploring their creativity, and the rubric evaluation of design outcomes showed a significant distribution of inspiration application (χ²(2) = 17.76, p = .00014). Participants reported that the inspiration category was easy to comprehend, whereas the mechanics category was perceived as difficult. The students felt that the toolkit was effective and also challenging. Experiencing nature consciously played a vital role in the toolkit. There is still substantial potential to investigate how nature can be used as a framework for design and in other domains.