Located in St. Ives in Cornwall, England, Muju World is an artist’s studio run by Mr. and Miss Muju that specializes in mixed media and toy creations. Their latest release is a team of “Ocean Guardians“, five sculptural pieces representing the five oceans: Arctic, Indian, Pacific, Atlantic and Southern. The scaled creatures are hand-cast in resin by Miss Muju and painted by hand in aqua gradients by Mr. Muju. Standing at a mere seven inches tall, the delightful figurines help to promote awareness of ocean issues, with £10 from each sale going to the Surfers for Cetaceans Charity.
“We aim to produce artworks that generate a positive vibe,” says Mr. Muju. “The concept of these sculptures as modern-day totems, protectors of nature and elemental forces seems to fit with our sense of creative purpose.” Both Mr. and Miss Muju are avid surfers and dedicated to the environment, the Ocean Guardians a follow-up to an earlier eco-conscious team of Forest Guardians.
The Muju Ocean Guardians are available from Muju World for £90.
Having founded the online artist’s community Little Paper Planes in 2004, Kelly Lynn Jones decided to share their ideas with readers in her new book of the same name. Little Paper Planes revisits the traditional DIY toy with 20 takes on the classic form, complete with perforated pages for folding, taping and flying. Each paper airplane comes from a different graphic artist, with designs ranging from old standbys to experimental models. Along with each artist’s background and their thoughts on childhood is a clear set of instructions, list of supplies and pattern needed to create their version of the paper airplane.
“Paper planes were something that bridged the gap between this make-believe world and reality,” writes Jones, musing about their role in her childhood imagination. “They were real, tangible objects but represented the possibility that what I imagined could really come to be.” In creating a book around the act of making and creativity—something so ingrained in youth—Jones felt a deep sense of nostalgia, while being confronted with the what she calls “notions around authorship and collaboration between artist and reader.”
The artists included in the book are all veterans of the LPP site, combining their efforts to produce this playtime edition. Besides more straightforward approaches from Alyson Fox‘s bright lined patterns to form into a flying airplane, a floating swan or “whatever you like”, and Brendan Monroe‘s Light Speed Flyer (“designed for speed”), some artists, such as Alexis Anne Mackenzie, venture outside the realm of linear flight. Her instructions read: “Shred the page into as many tiny pieces as you can, using only your fingers, and fling them into the air.” Christine Tillman gives us the schematics for a beautifully illustrated wad of paper—which, when thrown correctly, flies just as well as a paper airplane. Gemma Correll demonstrates a method to outfit a favorite pet with wings, including instructions to extend the length of paper for “plumper” animals.
Little Paper Planes drops in May 2012 and is available now for pre-order from Chronicle Books and Amazon.
Connect Legos, Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs and more with downloadable 3D adapters
There exist few limits to a child’s potential for creativity, and the blocks that accumulate on the playroom floor may seem equally boundless as kids are left to explore. Breaking down the boundaries between various branded construction sets like K’Nex, Legos and Lincoln Logs, two prominent technology-focused research and development labs—Free Art & Technology (F.A.T.) and Synaptic Lab—teamed up to create the Free Universal Construction Kit, a set of 3D adapter bricks that offers complete inter-operability between up to 10 children’s construction toys. With nearly 80 models available for free download, the kit can be printed one at a time using open-hardware desktop 3D printers like Makerbot.
The Free Universal Construction Kit takes the “best of all worlds” approach to designing each 3D model, choosing construction sets for their level of market penetration and diversity of features. Each individual piece in the kit can be combined with other traditional pieces to create a combination of kinetic movements and radical geometric designs or, as F.A.T. Lab describes it, “a meta mashup system”.
The various configurations within the innovative kit open a whole new world of building possibilities, encouraging children to create across platforms and brands. By making the kit entirely downloadable, inspired adults are encouraged to share designs and reproduce models of their own through personal 3D printers.
The Free Universal Construction Kit also includes a single, baseball-sized Universal Adaptor that offers connectivity between each of the 10 supported children’s construction systems. The kit can be downloaded in its entirety from the F.A.T. Lab site and through Thingiverse.com.
Three design-oriented card games build off of the color spectrum
A new line of games from Funnybone Toys looks to the design world as inspiration. The three innovative card games, Array, Cubu and Spectrix, build off of the color spectrum, sequencing and counting to create engaging children’s activities. While the rules for each game are somewhat similar to traditional dominoes, the punched up colors and non-traditional shapes of the colorful trio are bound to enhance both creativity and cognitive learning.
Spectrix is the most approachable of the three games, and arguably the most entertaining. Players are dealt a hand of cards with the purpose of getting rid of it before their opponents do so. By combining colors pairs and arranging cards into a communal spectrum, players gradually unload their hand in a colorful, number-free variation of gin rummy. When a player finishes off a spectrum, he or she calls out “White Light” to tack on five extra points to other players’ scores. Spectrix cards also function as simple memory game for young children.
The nicely free-flowing Array uses twelve-sided cards that players must lay down and connect by color, with the ultimate goal of eliminating your hand while creating the highest number of different color arrays. If players are particularly creative in their strategy, they have the ability of playing multiple cards per turn, based on the different combinations available. Additionally, the game is mixed up by “slam” and “splatter” cards, which add cards and points to a fellow player’s hand.
Admittedly more complicated, Cubu uses a radial sequence of multicolored squares and rectangles to determine player moves. In order to use a card, participants must play a series up or down from one of the cards on the table. For example, a card with a red rectangle at position three could be followed by a card with a red rectangle at position four. While it takes a little while to get used to Cubu, it is by far the most challenging and well-suited for older players.
The latest ways to enhance game play with your smartphone or tablet
With additional reporting by James Thorne
Realizing that competing with the popularity of smartphones and tablets is a game they’ve already lost, toy manufacturers are finding ways to incorporate apps and devices into their product experience. New options range from simple tactile cases to QR codes and elaborate augmented reality board games. We’re really impressed by the breadth of the examples we discovered at the 2012 Toy Fair in New York City this week, even if more often than not the concept is more impressive than the execution. This is a space in which we expect to see a huge amount of innovation, and look forward to seeing how large companies and startups jockey for position in the growing market.
The simple foam design of this ball opens the gaming experience to loads of new opportunities. By combining motion sensors, app-based games and TV visualization, the toy from Phyiscal Apps is able to dramatically expand the capabilities of your smartphone simply by securely wrapping it up in a foam ball. Experience bowling by watching the game on your TV and roll the ball against the wall to simulate bowling, for example.
A range of games from Hasbro slated to appear this year are swapping out traditional game boards for iPads. Old favorites like Life and Monopoly are among the ranks, although we were most excited by the company’s plans for Battleship. The strategic two-player game has come a long way since pegs and model ships ruled the board. The game leverages an app and is supplemented by placing battleship pieces on your iPad’s screen. For the game of Life, significant “moments” trigger relevant videos, from graduations to wedding ceremonies.
iBounce is reminiscent of treadmill televisions, giving kids an interface to play along with as they engage in physical activity. Currently accompanied by an eBook, the story prompts children to jump along with RompyRoo on his adventures. Apps are already in the works.
Age-old card games like Hearts, War and Solitaire aren’t left out of the appcessory world. The standard decks are enhanced by QR codes on some of the cards, which can be ignored offline or scanned to instigate new ways of play. For example, one scanned during Hearts may say to draw more cards, or to throw cards out. It’s a simple, clever way to engage those who are interested without modifying the game experience for those who aren’t.
Touted as “huggable learning”, these adorable smartphone holders give children something to grab on to as they learn through educational app play. The stand also serves as a charger.
This quiz game app and is created for family play, and leverages a dish that holds and counts tokens, and shields your screen-based entries from other players. Answer questions displayed on the screen by putting your colored pieces in the corresponding dish. Correct entries are then collected in the basin below without the need to manually tally responses. The company makes several other appcessories, including game show style buzzers for question-based games.
The original Eye Know card game has been enhanced with a free app component. Scrambled images gradually become clear, and players win points depending on how fast they can guess the person, place or thing coming into focus.
Featuring several different games, this triptych board by Identity Games uses the iPad as the central interface surrounded by two panels for real-world movement. Several two-sided inserts are included with the game board. Play is enabled by rotating the die in the holder, each face corresponding to a different game. Character pieces help keep kids involved as the integrated apps track progress, keep score and provide instruction. A version for smartphones is on the way, too.
The world of tablet styluses is given a natural kid-friendly counterpart with this “crayon” styled stylus by Dano. While not a game, it facilitates both drawing and game play. The triangle-shaped stylus teaches correct grip as users draw on the screen of the tablet, engaging with their app of choice.
Three downsized instruments teach aspiring children musical basics
Developing an interest in music at a young age is tremendously important to a child’s development. While toy versions of instruments have always been popular among parents, it can be difficult to parse the cheap imitators from the quality products. Coming out of this year’s Toy Fair, there were a few notable companies that are uniting design and durability in child-oriented instruments.
The Kickstarter campaign for the Loog Guitar reached its fundraising goal in 2011, and now the build-it-yourself instruments are available for purchase. The advantage to this children’s guitar is that you can build it piece-by-piece with your little one. Not only does this make for a fun hands-on activity, it also helps to create a special relationship between the child and their toy. Constructed from responsibly managed forest timber, the three-string guitar comes in a trio of styles and custom color pick guards, and a color-coded fretboard and simplified design will help first-timers learn the basics of picking and strumming. Find one at the Loog store for $215.
This compact activity station features a number of percussion options for tactile music-making, including a xylopipe, cymbal, drum, glockenspeil and four colorful maracas. The parts are sturdy and replaceable, and the table is made from baltic birch plywood. The Music Table is available from Little Colorado for $190.
Schoenhut has long produced the best piano for aspiring toddlers. Their Fancy Baby Grand has gotten a makeover in this pink version, which sports the brand’s signature curved legs and elegant lines. Schoenhut uses metal rods in place of string, which increases durability for intense sessions and produces a fun, chime-like tone. The play-by-color system is a throwback, but one that has taught generations of children the elements of piano playing. The piano is available from the Amazon for $85. It’s also available in white, red and black.
Web-connected robots dispense custom scents and candy treats
When a creative brief tasked them to “make something connected to the Internet that doesn’t live on the screen,” Foundry, a small research team at Mint Digital, came up with Olly, a scent-based system rewarding social media activity or, as they describe it on their site, a “web-connected smelly robot.”
Olly links up to web-based social applications and emits a fragrance—thankfully, one that you choose—when you receive emails, re-Tweets, instant messages, and various other pings across the channels of social media. Exploring the notion that smell is one of our most under-used senses in an over-stimulated world, Olly is a modular system that will have its own website from which the user can customize the way the smelly robot responds to web stimuli.
Joining Olly on Kickstarter is Molly, a robot Foundry will release today that graduates from scent to candy, dispensing one’s chosen sweets upon receipt of virtual notifications.
Molly operates in a similar way to Olly, which for scents stores a removable tray and a small interior fan to release the aroma. The user can customize various modules to assign different fragrances to different alerts—perhaps something sweet to soften the blow of a bill from your accountant, or a loved one’s perfume or cologne for their notes. According to the team at Foundry, “Olly wants to be fiddled with.”
While Olly works around a more cerebral sense, Molly is all about indulgence. Together, the robot pair might just serve as the ultimate carrot and stick for the digital generation. Olly and Molly (available later today) sell on Kickstarter for $50 each. The project will only come to fruition if they make the $35,000 goal, so pledge now.
Following the success of his crumpled city maps, which solved the problem of paper by replacing it with durable Tyvek, industrial designer Emanuele Pizzolorusso has now come out with a set of blocks made from Carrara marble, the same material used for Michelangelo’s David. Alpha Beta Gamma is a set of three geometric shapes that can be reconfigured into a variety of constructions, like a grown-up lego set.
Pizzolorusso wanted to create something harmonious and playful, giving people the freedom to design their very own desktop sanctuary. The result is a unique collection of gorgeously cut marble objects that brim with creative potential. The sets are available for pre-order on his website, or you can download technical drawings to make your own blocks (for non-commercial purposes) under the Creative Commons license.
Australian graffiti artist’s scuffling greyscale characters inhabit everything from paintings to scarves
Using everything from street walls to hundred-dollar bills and dresser drawers, Australian graffiti artist Stormie Mills has been exploring themes of urban decay since 1984. Characters, rendered predominantly in greyscale, evoke a sense of loneliness and isolation, portraying the age-old themes of quests for identity. His street art-style paintings, well-received by critics and collectors alike, have been commissioned for the creation of murals across Greece for the Athens Olympics and featured at Miami Art Basel, as well as at exhibitions in Barcelona, Greece, London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth.
Throughout his career, Mills has undertaken several unusual projects. In 2009, he and five other artists, calling themselves “Agents of Change,” stayed in an abandoned village in Scotland prior to its imminent demolition, transforming the area into a large work of art. The undertaking was documented in a short film, which showed at the London Film Festival. Stormie has also ventured into the world of collectible toy-making, releasing a limited-edition figure which was sold in Tokyo and New York.
His latest project gives wearable art the Stormie treatment. Inspired by the famous Oscar Wilde quote, “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars,” the artist created a limited-edition scarf, of which only 150 were produced. Available in black, blue, and grey and featuring a character dubbed “The Time Keeper,” the scarves include a hand-numbered booklet and sell from the Art Gallery of Western Australia for $450.
Commercial endeavors aside, the graffiti vet has enjoyed widespread success in his gallery showings, the most recent of which opened last Wednesday at Metro Gallery in Melbourne, Australia. The show, titled “Scuffling,” runs through 20 August 2011 and explores the idea of perpetual motion as well as a method of applying paint. “Scuffling as a way of painting seems to fit well with the sounds that I imagine my paintings would make if they were to walk,” explains Stormie, “I imagine they’d scuffle along, a cross between a shuffle and a scrape, very much like the way that I paint them.”
Six design items for kids of all ages from DesignMarch 2011
With the sheer amount of Scandinavian creativity, it’s clear kids in the region get an early start thanks to high-design playthings. We recently had a chance to check out some of the latest games, toys and more at the country’s annual design showcase, DesignMarch where there was no shortage of aesthetically-appealing products. As entertaining to adults as they are to wee ones, check out a few of our favorites below, as well as our round-up of designs made from locally-sourced, natural materials.
Puzzled by Iceland brings beautiful scenic photography to the mind-building childhood tradition of puzzles. Accompanying each entertaining puzzle, mythical and historical facts relating to each depicted scene teach kids about Iceland. Designed for varying ages and skill levels, the puzzles come in 48- or 500-piece editions starting at $28.
Creatively designed for comfort and fun, Sunbird clothing combines playful fringes and bright colors with extremely soft and easily-maintained cotton to keep everyone happy—from the children wearing it to parents and passersby. Pieces start around €33 and are available from the Sunbird shop online.
Stáss Ornaments‘ bunny- and swan-shaped Fairytale Clocks add a charming splash of color to any kid’s bedroom. The colorful epoxy-coated aluminum clocks are a nice display of functional allure. Check Stáss retailers for availability.
Signý Kolbeinsdóttir and Helga Árnadóttir—the duo behind the imaginative Tulipop notebooks, notecards and prints—add whimsy to paper goods with illustrations of otherworldly characters. Wall stickers and seasonal gift tags round out their collection of environmentally-friendly designs, typically made with organic materials. Products sell from their online store for around €12 each.
Designer Anna Þóunn’ cuddly Fjöll pillows are inspired by the natural bond between Iceland’s pure mountains and the sheep that roam them each spring. Made of real sheepskin, one side features a fuzzy place to lay your head and the other a graphic depicting the mountainous scene. Each is filled with the highest quality down, and following the shape of the sheepskin’s original form, unique in shape and size.
Check out Iceland design shop Epal for many of these products and more from Iceland’s top designers.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
