Editor’s Gold Award Pick: As much as I love toys I live with the guilt that so many of them are filling the landfills of the world with toxic plastics and who knows what else. So when I met the robot shown above it was love at first sight. Now what’s interesting about this robot is that most of the parts that you see aren’t included! In fact 90% of what you’re looking at in this toy is made out of recycled items that we throw away every day — which is what makes this hobby kit so ingenious. The Makedo Find & Make a Robot Kit includes a easy-to-use cutting device to hack cardboard and a series of fasteners to hold objects together — and thus by applying the age old toy concepts that you see in Tinker Toys or Lego combined with the idea of recycling you get an amazingly creative activity for your kids. Read more…
Editor’s Silver Award Pick: When I was first shown this crafts kit I have to admit that on the face of it I was unimpressed — it was just a collection of beads on a string made into a bracelet. But that’s what makes this crafts kit so brilliant! It turns out that every bead in this kit is assigned a secret letter — so kids can put secret messages on the bracelets to give to their friends who can then decode them. Essentially this is a crafters version of a Little Orphan Annie decoder ring! In a show filled with slick gimmicks and dazzling packaging I was impressed with how something so simple could be so engaging. And thus the Bead the Message crafts kit earns my silver award for Toy Fait 2010. Read more…
As someone who went to art school it’s very easy to find creative toys for kids, but there are certain categories of playthings like dollhouses that always seem so old fashioned. So it was with joy that I discovered the brinca dada line at this year’s Toy Fair: They have an amazing line of modernist dollhouses and matching furniture! Their toy furniture line looks like a miniature version of what you might see in the windows of Design Within Reach — and better yet the dollhouse solar panels to power the lights inside: Read more…
We’ve all grown up with the Bazooka Joe gimmick: Half the fun of opening the single package of gun was to read the comic tucked inside. And of course the Cracker Jacks version is to give you a secret surprise inside the box — a technique that cereal companies turned into a fine art (not to forget McDonald’s Happy Meals as well). However today I leaned a twist on this old marketing hook thanks to an imported Japanese pack of Doraemon gum. Upon opening my gum I discovered that each individual wrapper had a unique design based on the well known anime cat: Read more…
I had such high hopes for the Meiji Poporon Strawberry Cookie but alas even with my sweet tooth I couldn’t eat more than just a few of these bite sized saccharine treats. They have puffy wheat outside and a super sweet strawberry filling on the inside as shown in the packaging. And as for the packaging it was slick, but I was a bit let down at the lack of cute illustrations that would have given it that extra something: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 18, 2009 in Cinema, Design
On this day in 1933 visual futurist Syd Mead was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He started his career in 1959 working for Ford Motor Company, but for us fanboys our love affair with his work really starts 70s when he started to make the jump from slick looking industrial design to science fiction. His early film work in Hollywood includes credits on the film Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 2010, Tron, Aliens and even the comedy Short Circuit (yes that was his robot design!). However his triumph for me was his preproduction work on Blade Runner: Read more…
At my local Korean food mart I came across these devastatingly sour and sweet candies from Japan called Shigekikkusu (シゲキックス) which are produced by UHA Mikakuto. I picked up two flavors, the first (shown above) was soda flavored and the second was cola flavored (shown below). The candies were small but packed a punch — the outside was coated with a light dusting of super sour dust, after a few seconds this wears off and you can taste the very sweet inside of of jelly like candy. Read more…
Recently I was wandering through a Korean food mart and I came across this very cute package design for Japanese animal crackers: Aside from the captivating colorful characters the first thing that blew me away was that the crackers are actually teaching kids to understand English, not Japanese! I started to suspect that this was something just done for the American market, but the package actually comes from Japan (produced by Ginbis). The back of the box even had a cute mini-dictionary of animal names (my favorite touch are the cartoons of each creature next to the name): Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 14, 2009 in Animation, Design
Saint Paul Police Detectives and Their Work was a public service color stop motion cartoon produced in 1940. The quality of the animation is itself quite crude and done on tabletop, although the design of each scene which represents a criminal activity is fascinating as each screen is well designed and uses everyday objects. The added touch of the art deco lettering gives you a Dick Tracy feeling offset by an almost surreal sounding soundtrack: Read more…
Editor’s Note: As a creative person I’ve been watching the urban toys scene in awe — and the first question that pops into my head is always “What’s the process of making these cool art objects into reality?” Long time artist David Foox has just introduced a line of toys called Organ Donors, so I asked him as a favor to write up an article giving his start-to-finish experience as a first time creative tackling the world of designer toys.
Step #1 Concept
The most important aspect of any custom vinyl toy is CONCEPT. “If your concept is solid, your toy is a success.” – Erick Scarecrow, friend. While this is the first step of the project, it is actually the most important step – and the one that is most often neglected. People are typically in a hurry to get to the other steps and fail to adequately delve into the concept that is being developed. In order to best develop a concept, I would advise people to first create an inhabitable environment, world, universe, or cause. Read more…
