As a child Suhasini has created her own toys and games. She found an inclination towards creative things and found it calling out to her while perusing B.E. in electrical engineering. At the same time she started a company called ‘Dreamz Decorations’, “My work then entailed window displays and organizing birthday parties for kids in free time apart from engineering studies.”

As she knew she wanted to do something for children and then gradually went on to discover the lacuna in the existing toy industry. But to her advantage, “During that period in 2002, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, started a new discipline – Toy Design and Development.  I got myself enrolled in 2003 and did my post-graduation in toy design. Just after doing my post-graduation from NID in Toy Design, I began my journey as a design entrepreneur in 2005, hunting opportunities for design intervention in the toy sector. Ever since, I have been actively involved in spreading awareness about Toy Design, a new profession in India; by giving lectures in design Schools like IILM School of Design, NIFT Delhi, IIT Kanpur and NID.”

She has already been seen, quite often in fact, on NDTV for a chat show – ‘Bringing Up Baby’, to share the perspective of a Toy Designer on choosing and buying appropriate toys for children. She also to talks about special need toys, developmental toys and toy safety. Within a period of 6+ years she has been able to design toys for quite a number of industries, helping them accelerate their business growth.

“My clients includes Disney, Hape – Germany, Kinder Joy -Italy, Royal King -Thailand, Esselte Corp. USA, Nokia, Plan strategies UK, Frank – India, Playgro –India, Ediots, India to name a few,” says Suhasini.

Inspirations and Mentors:
As a child I used to create my own toys and games. I remember making a personalized hexagonal carom board to accommodate more than 5 other friends of mine.

I used to spend lot of time with my maternal grandmother Mrs. Vimal Manapure, who taught me different stitching techniques, paper folding, chalk sculpting. We used to do lot of creative stuff together.

My Mom used to give me all the raw material whatever I wanted from the junk and encouraged me in my play time activities.

My dad is a creative person himself as during his free time he used to design lot of stuff using junks or jugad as we call it. He also used to keep himself busy painting his vehicle or stylizing the number plate. I used to enjoy helping him in these fun stuff and activities. It gave me zest to do things on my own.

Sandip Paul, my husband is also my mentor as he is the one who discovered my latent desire and believed that I will do wonders in Toy Design. With him my hobby turned into a full time profession. He has been a great source of inspiration and a change agent for me. I met him during my Engineering days. He is immensely talented and highly creative individual with many facets, because of him I got to know about the design profession and NID. Paul Sandip is one of the most promising Industrial Designers from India. He is the only designer in the country who has twice won the prestigious Red Dot Design Award and won 25 national and international design awards.  His work has been featured internationally over the past 7 years. He specializes in contextual innovation, likes exploring forms with fantasy and loves story telling!

Industry Innovation:
Refreshing the clothes line clip, whose identity, practicality and popularity have remained undamaged since inception. Clip is a dual-jaw clothesline peg with a lifespan around twice as long as a regular peg. It offers a reduced carbon footprint, easy recyclability, and better usability. It is made with post-consumer and pre-consumer recycled and recyclable polyethylene, and encourages the use of old fashioned (solar-powered) clothes drying.

Clip is an attempt to re-define a mundane object to breathe in fresh thoughts in the field of design for mass manufacturing: evoking ecological awareness and accountability. Clip offers a number of advantages over regular pegs. It does not leave rust marks on fabric as there is no metal component. It does not make grip marks since it does not bite onto the fabric while hanging. Its dual-jaw design creates an interesting form and also doubles its lifespan, as even if one jaw is damaged, the other jaw still remains functional. With its reduced number of components and production processes, Clip is easy to mass-manufacture and can be sold at a low price. As Clip is a single piece of injection-moulded plastic with no metal parts, it is very easy to recycle. ts primary innovation is the possibility of being hanged by both of its extremities.

Clip is designed by Paul Sandip.  Yellow Clip – Winner RED DOT DESIGN AWARD 2010

Timelessness in Design:
One classic modern solution–the Eames shell rocker, formally known as the Eames RAR Rocker–has a historical connection to new babies. The original manufacturer, Herman Miller, used to give one to employees on the birth of their child.

The Eames adapted molding techniques developed during World War II to produce the shells. They also perfected another technique with which they had been experimenting—creating a bent, welded wire base.

The shell  seat is a with a high back, deep seat pocket, and armrests, this rocker definitely looks unconventional but still offers classic comfort for luxuriously long sitting sessions. The shell sits on a unique Eiffel Tower-inspired wire base made of Wire with solid ash runners. A seamless union of form and function. Clean, simple form sculpted to fit the body. This contemporary accent chair perfectly combines comfort and style. I am a proud owner of this rocker, it’s a timeless design for me.

Industry Favorites:
I love the Balancing Cactus by Pan toys, Thailand. This is a fantastic toy.  This is one of very few toys that is entertaining for all. Excellent quality and great concept. Helps to teach balance and concept of gravity. Educational and fun!

Industrial Design Trends:
We have been practicing sustainable living since ages, being eco-friendly is not new for us. So we just have to continue doing what our grandparents used to do: Re-Use, Re-Cycle and Re-Purpose. It has that nostalgic feeling as well.

Modern Indian Design:
Indian are very adaptive in nature, so we are sensible towards culture and design from the far east to the far west, we want to have little bit of everything.

Exciting Projects:
Well, I have worked on various children products like Lunch box, water bottle, and pencil box, adding play value to them. However, I enjoy designing Board Games the most. As a game designer, making strategies for board games while imparting knowledge is a challenge by itself, as I have to play the game from both the ends.

‘Water Cycle’ the first board game designed by me, is very close to my heart. I have designed it the year 2005, its still selling successfully in 14 countries all over the globe and well appreciated by teachers in India considering its role in imparting playful learning of Environmental Basics. This game is based on imbibing environment awareness in children and teaching them nature concepts in a playful way.

While playing “Water Cycle” children will come to know about the water cycle in nature and how water moves in different forms through different places. Children will move to all the places along the path on the game board eventually learning the journey of water.

Future Plans:
“I would like to bring creativity into any job or scenario for the results to be extraordinary. I am currently involved not only in the discovery of new ideas or concepts, but also new associations of talents and businesses, fueled by sheer creativity.

Also I will be Launching “Pink Elefant” toys in the next couple of days.

Materials and Substrates:
All kinds. I haven’t stick to one particular one.  I started with paper products that is designing educational puzzles and board games, then moved to plastics and injection to build moulded toys.  I’ve also designed a neon gas-infused glass lamp. Designed and produced wooden products – My Lilliput Army, contemporizing the traditional technique of turning wood.

I regularly visit various client locations to understand their work flow and better material understanding. For example, I have worked in the dense bamboo jungles of China to design toys for a German company HAPE. HAPE’s core expertise lies in manufacturing bamboo toys and is the only company in the world to deal with this art exclusively. I spent a month there to understand how the material behaves and designed a bamboo doll house keeping in mind the material properties. Currently, I’m working with fleece, the safest material for soft toys for making my own line of products – Monster Hugs.

Recognition and Accolades:
In 2005, I was honored by the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Shri. Narendra Modi as the first lady ‘Designprenuer’ of India. The same year, “Dialogue” – a communication aid toy was selected as a top finalist at the Business World Design Excellence Award. In 2009, I was selected as one of the finalist at British Council Young Design Entrepreneur Award