Emil Guldager
Mfa In Interaction Design
Umeå Institute Of Design
Specialisms: Interaction Design / Industrial Design / Design for Social Good
Location: Aarhus, Denmark
Emil Guldager
First Name: Emil
Last Name: Guldager
Specialisms: Interaction Design / Industrial Design / Design for Social Good
Sectors: Digital/Visual Communication/Film / Product / Architecture / Interiors / Product / Architecture / Interiors
My Location: Aarhus, Denmark
University / College: Umeå Institute Of Design
Course / Program Title: Mfa In Interaction Design
About
I am an interaction designer from Denmark. I recently finished my Master's in Interaction Design at Umeå Institute of Design in the far cold north of Sweden. For my thesis, I explored 'Playfulness in Adulthood', and how design can help facilitate an individual exploration and reflection of playfulness in adulthood to help people rekindle their inquisitive and playful mindset.
On a more serious note, I am really into pasta dishes and can drink absurd amounts of Pepsi.
Play is such a fundamental part of being a child. It helps us make sense of ourselves, others, and the world we engage in. It helps us to become spontaneous, creative, imaginative, and honest. Even though most of these traits follow us into adulthood, it seems that over time we stop engaging and learning through the power of play, as it gets neglected and deprioritized. We forget how to play. Instead, we end up dismissing play as frivolous, irrelevant, and a waste of time. For my thesis, I explored if we could somehow reintroduce this trait to adults and help them rediscover this imaginative exploration and approach to life. Through extensive user inclusion, I learned that adult playfulness is about diverging and converging, and exploring new possibilities. Where adults see a sidewalk, kids see a playground or even dangerously hot lava. Children are excellent at diverging and adults are great at converging. But like any good design process, we need both. We need to become more explorative and less serious. We need to be able to jump out of daily routines, put our rigid A-B thinking aside, and enjoy the journey and the process just as much if not even more than the outcome.