Meet Design for Play alumnus Sofie Casparsen

Tell us a bit about yourself!
My name is Sofie Casparsen. I’m from Amager, Copenhagen in Denmark. I have a master’s degree in Design for Play from Design School Kolding and a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design from The Royal acadamy of Architecture, Design and Conservation. I also have 9 years of military training.

Where do you work at the moment? What is your role and what are your tasks?
I work at Thomas Dambo Art - the troll factory – in Gadstrup close to Roskilde. My title is design lead and my everyday job spans from concept development to more concrete measure strict drawings for our workshop manager and engineers. Right now, I’m drawing t-shirts for an exhibition in Atlanta and making concept and measure drawings for a road trip project in America as well. It’s a workplace where the days are seldom alike, and the work can vary depending on the ideas. Since we’re a very little group of designers (Thomas, Jacob, and me) there's a lot of processes that I find similar to the creative processes at the design school; we’re just a lot faster to act on ideas.

What role has the Design for Play master’s programme played in getting you where you are today?
I got my job from a reference that Head of the Design for Play programme, Karen Feder, put up on our Facebook page. I went out there to give an impression of myself and tried to wiggle my way in. And I think it was a mix of how the stars where aligned in that period, luck, and of course my education. Sometimes timing and network is the key and then your own skillset is the actual way in.

Can you tell us about an important memory from Design School Kolding?
A really good moment on the master’s programme for me was my master’s project itself. Here, I finally got to apply play in a field where I could investigate its relevance in relation to a heavier area such as homelessness and the shelter. This project really gave me insight and knowledge about how important playful design can be in settings that are dealing with less playful issues. The project was about actual physical design solutions, but foremost about the value of connecting play with a shelter and homelessness. Could this even be a match? It taught me so much, not only about the culture I was in, but also my own role as a designer and what my heart was beating for within design. I had struggled to find the field where I saw myself fit within design, and with this project I felt that I finally found it. I wanted to work with not just designing beautiful things, for the sake of them being beautiful, but also understanding what the beauty did to us mentally and what type of "beauty" we can agree on. So for me, this project gave me a knowledge of another layer of play design that was more about mental play than physical play. And that to me was like an AHA moment: one of many in this project.

Do you have any advice to give to someone undertaking this educational path?
Have faith in the process. You don't always know where you are heading after your education, so be open minded to the different courses, because they will give you a better perspective of where play can be applied, as well as inspire you to see where play is lacking. It will get under your skin and give you a new set of eyes from a playful but also mindful perspective of design and how to apply this dimension to your design.