Hasta La Ideas

Six toy makers employ nature’s classic playtime material

The tactile qualities and durability of wood make it the perfect material for children’s toys. Despite the prevalence of plastic, we’re still fans of old-school toy-making in the form of wooden figurines and structures. Here are six picks from this year’s Toy Fair in NYC.

Anamalz

Designed in Australia, the playful figurines from Anamalz include creatures from the extinct to the exotic. All of the toys are handmade from wood sourced from sustainable forests with rope appendages and felt manes and tails.

Brinca Dada

Instill a bit of the modern design aesthetic early on with one of these dollhouses modeled after the De Stijl movement, which come with equally geometric furnishings replicating famous Dutch designs. Brinca Dada also offers a set of mismatched blocks from hand-carved teak, which challengees your child to create original forms—perfect for those who like to draw outside the lines.

Citiblocs

From renewable forests in New Zealand come Citiblocs, a set of identical building blocks that can accommodate infinite arrangements. Despite the incredibly simple concept, the potential applications of these rectangular forms is truly impressive.

Scrabble Typography

For older kids and anyone who likes to play with words, Scrabble has reinvented itself with the solid walnut set. The Scrabble Typography Deluxe Edition uses different typefaces for all of the tiles, ensuring that good spelling and appealing fonts go hand in hand.

Guidecraft

Made from solid wood and birch plywood, Guidecraft provides a clean design center for kids to get crafty. These modest sets are sure to keep creativity at the forefront of your child’s mind.

Prince Lionheart

Teaching balance to youngsters, the pedal-less bikes from Prince Lionheart are made from birch that is cut from an FSC-certified forest. What begins as a timid walk will quickly become a gleeful glide on the chopper-inspired frame.

Tree Blocks

The structures and elvish figurines from Tree Blocks are created from reclaimed and sustainably harvested wood. Stack the blocks to create small wooden towers for the elves to inhabit.

Slideshow: Israeli studios Monkey Business and Reddish have designed these pins for making little animal characters from wine corks at the dinner table.

Each kit contains the required limbs and features to make one of six characters, although all the parts can be interchanged to create whatever kind of strange menagerie you want.

The range includes a monkey, deer, buffalo, bear, bunny and crow.

See more stories about animals on Dezeen here.

See more stories about cork here.

Here’s a tiny bit of text from the designers:

An original addition to the wine bottle you bring to dinner.

A design collaboration between Monkey Business and Reddish Studio.

Bring your dinner party and your bottle corks to life with these cute, collectable animal parts.

Each pack includes the body parts required for one Corker.

Available in 6 designs: Monkey, Deer, Buffalo, Bear, Bunny & Crow.

Cork not included.

These toy vehicles by London designer Oscar Diaz are assembled from their own packaging.

Each Tube Toy comes with components like stickers and wheels inside a cardboard tube that becomes the body of the car, fire engine, train or tractor, with pre-cut slots for easy assembly.

Only the paper strip round the outside is discarded and all components are recycled or recyclable.

Gift company NPW presented the products at New York International Gift Fair earlier this month, alongside temporary tattoo finger puppets by Héctor Serrano.

Other projects by Diaz on Dezeen include a calendar that uses the capillary action of ink spreading across paper to display the date and pens that record sound on paper then play it back – see all our stories about his work here.

See more stories about toys here.

Here are some more details from Diaz:

The Tube Toys are a series of vehicles to assemble were the packaging is also a part of the product, reducing considerably the amount of material discarded after buying it, and the extra cost that traditional packaging involves.

All the parts needed to build each vehicle are contained on a standard cardboard tube, which doubles as the packaging. The tubes have slots and holes to place the wheel axes and other components. A single stripe of paper displaying all the information necessaries for the shop (brand, product name/description and barcode) is the only bit that will be discarded after purchase.

All the materials used on the product are also recycled and/or recyclable. The cars are easy to assemble and acknowledge the fact that children often enjoy playing with the packaging as much as they do with the actual toys.

Gift brand NPW presented the ‘Tube Toys’ at New York International Gift Fair earlier this month.

Maurato raccoglie in casa tutto ciò che gli capita tra plastica e alluminio e li assembla in questi geniali puppetz. L’unione dei vari pezzi avviene senza l’uso di alcun tipo di colla o adesivi, ma esclusivamente attraverso un gioco di incastri con fascette di plastica.

In occasione del 500esimo episodio dei Simpson, uscirà questa versione vinilica di Matt Groening prodotto da Kidrobot. Atteso per febbraio.
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