Slam #1 Children's Toy

is the value of a toy limited only to play value? is it limited only to the child? who or what defines “toy”? and is that definition variable?

when i was a kid, i had lego, but plastercine was my favourite :smiley:

So many posts of LEGO as an exemplary solution to a responsible, creatiive, fun and timeless toy.

Lego is a toy as much as a crayon is a toy and they do the same thing. Lego is more of a creative medium than a toy. Isnt it? A creative medium thats plastic. And then they sell it by putting a picture of a toy made from it on the front of the box… like cars and planes and robots and houses… YAY!

LEGO’s a 3d crayon.
But then think how much better is a crayon! Its just colored wax. When the kid is using that toy… its disappearing as they go! And all you have left in the end is a record of their childhood and their quickly depleting imagination… pictures drawn by them!

So think of those things not popularly classified as toys. Like crayons and blankets and picture books… the occassional cardboard box and a parent who spends a little time with you. Those are natural things of childhood.

I’ve been trying to spend some time thinking about kids, watching kids, remembering my childhood. There are some great stories about children that capture something magical over on the believer website.


User Profile: Jenny

Jenny is four, although she will often tell you that she’s almost five. She has some very nice toys. When you ask her she is very happy to search through her toy pile to show you her ‘favorite’ toys. She has stuffed animals that talk and respond to certain kinds of stimulation, one that glows when you squeeze it. She has a several pairs of plastic high heels, one that looks like Cinderella’s glass slippers. While showing me her treasures, she steps over heaps of little plastic figurines, stuff from happy meals, dolls and action figures. Jenny’s room is nearly always a mess, like the rest of the house she lives in with her mother. She’s got a dollhouse that’s as big as she is that sits in a corner of the kitchen, usually so stuffed full of toys that it’s less a toy than a fancy storage box.

I’ve never seen her wear her glass slippers for more than a few minutes, and it’s usually because her mother has asked her to show them off to a visitor.

When Jenny’s not showing off her toys, she likes to play in a way that doesn’t even involve toys at all.

Jenny’s favorite kind of play is to jump on the couch, or take the cushions off and cover the whole floor in them and have chasing games through this new landscape. After that she likes to pretend she’s a monkey and climb her mother or her uncle or other adults she likes, hanging off them and sliding down onto the floor.

She seems happiest when lost in some kind of daydream that touches reality only tangentially. I’ve seen her making mud pies for hours while chatting out loud to herself, in a kind of gibberish that I find totally incomprehensible, but seems to make her really happy.

Jenny doesn’t have a lego set, or many of the other constructive toys that have been mentioned recently in this thread. She has paints and crayons, playdough and clay–these are things she really enjoys playing with, things that seem to get her into that same kind of daydream. She likes to make something while at the same time creating a story surrounding what she makes.

(There was a great article in Design Issues (Vol. 19, Issue 1 - Winter 2000) by Gabriela Goldschmidt: The Backtalk of Self-Generated Sketches that talks about this process that children go through while making a drawing, and allowing what they draw to create a story in their imagination.)

I’d like to propose that this kind of play is somehow much more fulfilling for Jenny than showing off her collection, whether it be for adults or to her friends. It seems to draw her in and keep her occupied longer, and have an effect that calms her down and makes her more pleasant to be around.
How can I try to create that in a product designed for children?

It may help to define the quality I’m looking for a little further, or define it’s opposite.

Speaking of which, I’m headed to ToysR’us later this week for a little research–maybe I can try to define the qualities of the disposable toys and give myself a target to aim at here.

I had many legos when I was a kid, a 20 gallon paint pail full. I also had paint, and clay, and many other similar ways of expressing myself and being creative.

When it came down to it, legos always lost when compared to the other means. I would paint a picture, make a sculpture, or a noodle collage, and it would be saved. In fact there is still a box full of my young creations at my parents house that get taken out and looked at, and often still displayed.

What I am getting at is that the temporary nature of legos prevented some of my more brilliant creations from being in existance today. And I seem to remember being young and frustrated that this was the case. Once, I built this elaborate (and pretty clever) water game. It was much like at the county fair, where you would shoot water into the clowns mouth and the little cars would move. Well I also had a little brother, who unbeknownst to me, took it apart one day. If it had been possible, I would have kept that creation.

Legos for me lacked the ability to preserve my creations (at least without superglue and adult supervision, which isn’t an option when youre a kid. who wants to play with their parents?), something I think every “artist” desires in their work.

NUFF SAID!

klim@bigshottoyworks.com


www.bigshottoyworks.com

TO PUT HEXES on their friends!


available NOW!




klim@bigshottoyworks.com

pimping ‘ey?
There’s a separate board for toy design. I don’t think bigshottoyworks’ posts are relevant to design slam competition.

agreed. looks like spam to me. if lovethelittlerocket wishes, i will delete the two posts above.

You can feel free to delete the pics … Not Spam really I am an Industrial designer working in the toy industry, trying to spread some fun out there…


where is teh seperate board for toy design?

thanks

will remove on lovethelittlerocket’s direction. nothing stopping you from editing your own posts.

“where is teh seperate board for toy design?”

down where it says “toy design”.

bigshot–I’d appreciate it if you’d leave the posts up.

these are a good way to start talking about the many kinds of toys out there, and the disposablity or lifecycle of those toys. (more about this below)

I would like to ask you though, along with anyone else actually working in the toy industry, how do new toy designs come out? these are obviously toys not for children, which is kind of what I’m trying to aim at here, but toys are toys as far as I’m concerned.

(also, the graf train is way cooler than the plasticvoodoo)

There are a lot of different kinds of toys out there obviously, but there are just so many plastic toys (PTs) being manufactured that it’s kind of gross.

Many of these toys are geared into some kind of marketing campaign, designed for disposibility, and thrown away or destoyed in relativly short order. Happy meal toys are the perfect example of what I’m talking about, but I think the same argument (about being disposable) applies to barbies and action figures, playskool full-size doll houses (like the priate ship above) and bigwheels.

I’m not really comfortable about the fact that PTs are the kinds of toys we love to give children, and collect as adults. The main thing that bothers me is the fact that these toys are made of plastic–waste plastic becomes a nasty environmental problem, because it takes forever to break down, and as far as I understand (correct me if I’m wrong) recycled plastic is seriously difficult to work with. There is also the problem of plastic requiring huge ammounts of petro-chemicals to produce in the manufacturing process.

I’d like to see another material come into play, something that somehow fits the character of these toys. I can imagine something decomposable and impregnated with tree seeds. (although I hate to imagine the sad day after spring cleaning when a childs dead toys are buried in a mass grave and watered, but I guess the resulting garden might be something…)

Another thing about PTs, which is evident in the johnny voodoo stuff above is that at best PTs are something that sparks the imagination and creates some movement or humor–but most of these crumby cheap plastic toys were never created for a human purpose. they exist to sell something else, or just sell themselves, to be collected, or for a cheap gumball machine distraction.

how would you get away from that? is it even possible to give a toy a purpose?

are creative toys–such as legos, paints, clay, etc. different from cheap plastic toys? how?

is it better when toys actually engage the kids who plays with it?



LTLR

Thanks!

the toy market is in a flux, there is no HOT toy this year, everyone is panicking. the stuff that is getting most play is the “DESIFNER to” stuff.
look at www.toytokyo.com and www.kidrobot.com

those toys are becoming very popular with collectors. also people like me who are in their 30s and have kiids want to get their kids "cool "stuff not just teh weekly elmo or barbie…
It is a huge looooong subject I will try to get back to it but now have to get all my stuff ready for toyfair. booth 5854 (in teh designer toy isle)…


traisn are pretty sweet wait till you see what kind of shows and product we have next!


check www.theshowroomnyc for a good gallery layout…

let me know what you think!!


K

i did not catch the post above…

you have to realise that kids will play with sticks and Mud and the box is usually more fun than the toy that it came in… that is teh big secret of the toy industry…
toys are marketed as disposable items
and there would be no money made if they could not re-hash barbie or GiJoe every earr so youca “collect tehm all”…
New materiials are always explored but as crappy as you think some of that stuff is it needs to pass a lot of tests befor it goes to market… things like breakage,stresspoints mold, choling hazard and small parts, are really tough obticles when you are tryingto pass anew material…

the only real way to create meaningfull objects for children is to be involved in their development the way none of us really have time to…

“but there are just so many plastic toys (PTs) being manufactured that it’s kind of gross.”

iirc Little Tikes owes some success to big football shaped toy chest. made from regrind. so ugly brown color from mixed regrind not an issue. smart use of mostly waste plastic.

instead of material, what of the Toy? does it have a life - a meaning - beyond childhood? arent memories associated w it? dont parents save them? how? where? why? and what becomes of that toy? if its passed to another child, a grandchild, is it a consumable? plastic can be extremely durable. if used to advantage, isnt it a better solution? really nice plastic toy can last many years.

is plastic the problem? or is it consumer behavior? reinforced by shoddy goods manufactured cheaply. their intention to spur replacement purchasing. fuel the fads.

ykh: you hit the nail on the head–“shoddy goods manufactured cheaply.”

It doesn’t matter if the toys are paper or plastic or what; the waste of material and energy is not the only thing that grosses me out, but the way kids become accustomed through these kinds of products to the cycle of manufactured goods through their life: desire and disposal.

Here’s bigshot:

the only real way to create meaningful objects for children is to be involved in their development the way none of us really have time to…

do none of us really have time to take with children?

I don’t think this is actually true–maybe we choose to use our time that doesn’t leave time for the right kind of involvement in the lives of children, but It’s also possible that this could (maybe should) change.

I’m still a student, so feel free to call me idealistic, but I’m trying to imagine something that positively affects consumer behavior. I’m interested designing to effect soceity–honestly, it seems impossible to make anythying that doesn’t have an effect. Aren’t we all kind of interested in changing consumer behavior (even if that only means making them stop at nothing to get ahold of our product?)

So what I’m thinking about doing here is to come up with something that targets parrents’ behavior more than the behavior of children. It’s probably going to be some kind of early childhood product, something that attempts to create an awareness of the things that we give to children, the materials and the lifecycle of those things.

I’ve come up with some ideas, but all of them have their flaws:

a bigwheel made from a more durable plastic (I’m thinking the kind of material used in car bodies these days) with a white matte washable finish that accepts crayon or other media–something that could be originally attractive to parrents because of it’s sleek white profile, and to children for it’s expressive potential, and a solution to the disposablity issue by being something that younger sisters and eventually the kids next door will want to color on and ride. It would be more exprensive to make than the bigwheels on the market, so you’d have to style it for that higher-priced market, but that might work out as a incentive to reuse rather than disposabliity.

another idea is a set of clayworking tools scaled for kids. I could focus on the sculpting tools and the rolling machine (not sure what its called but it re-claims clay, makes it workable again…) although it’s meant to relcaim waste, this isn’t so much a replacement for a disposable, except in the sense that kids who are hooked on playing with toys that allow them to be creative aren’t going to be hooked on toy fads, at least in theory.

the best idea so far though is probably something like a crib–or it would replace a crib (which is definately something that is disposable; I’ve seen them construced out of that same tubing as lawn chairs) that either becomes a play structure/fort for the kid as it grows up, or a piece of furniture, or both.

I’d obviously love any feedback on the ideas here, but I’d also like to hear what you think about the culture of childrearing, and to know if I’m making any sense with all this buisness about design and the effects on parrents’ behavior.


LTLR

“come up with something that targets parrents’ behavior more than the behavior of children.”

children have to learn from someone. :slight_smile:

and it’s their parents that buy the toys, anyway :neutral_face:

Parents buy toys to escape the whining. The smartest parents make sure that the kids less exposed to the advertising. No ads, no demand. No demand, no begging. No begging, no frustration. No frustration, no purchase.

:)ensen.