Contains ideas, instructions and patterns for making toys and designs based on Beatrix Potter's animal world.

Made of beige open-weave jute with colored leather accents, Renate Müller's toy animals and shapes are some of the sweetest, most endearing and simply artistic toys that have ever been made. They were conceived in the early 1960s, as part of an endeavor launched by Helene Haeusler at the Sonneberg Technical College for Toy Design in Germany, and were designed to fulfill the need for large, brightly colored stuffed animals to enhance orthopedic exercises and balance coordination for mentally and physically handicapped children. Müller's toys debuted at the Leipzig Fair in 1967, were tested by psychiatric hospitals and clinics throughout Germany and proved a huge hit. In fact, her alligators and rhinos were so lovable, her fabric bowling pins so beautifully made, her hippos and elephants so comforting, that they quickly became coveted by design buffs worldwide, and they have remained so to this day. In 1990, Müller took over the rights to her designs and continues to hand-produce very limited quantities of these classic designs as well as new designs. Renate Müller: Toys + Design is the first monograph on Müller's work available in the United States. Coinciding with a wave of renewed interest in therapeutic toy design, and with Müller's first solo exhibition, at R 20th Century, this volume inspires and delights in equal measure.

This imaginative collection of 20 stunning, soft, and safe stitched toys includes guidelines for easy embroidery, appliqu, patchwork, decorative beading, and making toys' faces.

Informed by the analytical practices of the interdisciplinary 'material turn' and social historical studies of childhood, Childhood By Design: Toys and the Material Culture of Childhood offers new approaches to the material world of childhood and design culture for children. This volume situates toys and design culture for children within broader narratives on history, art, design and the decorative arts, where toy design has traditionally been viewed as an aberration from more serious pursuits. The essays included treat toys not merely as unproblematic reflections of socio-cultural constructions of childhood but consider how design culture actively shaped, commodified and materialized shifting discursive constellations surrounding childhood and children. Focusing on the new array of material objects designed in response to the modern 'invention' of childhood-what we might refer to as objects for a childhood by design-Childhood by Design explores dynamic tensions between theory and practice, discursive constructions and lived experience as embodied in the material culture of childhood. Contributions from and between a variety of disciplinary perspectives (including history, art history, material cultural studies, decorative arts, design history, and childhood studies) are represented – critically linking historical discourses of childhood with close study of material objects and design culture. Chronologically, the volume spans the 18th century, which witnessed the invention of the toy as an educational plaything and a proliferation of new material artifacts designed expressly for children's use; through the 19th-century expansion of factory-based methods of toy production facilitating accuracy in miniaturization and a new vocabulary of design objects coinciding with the recognition of childhood innocence and physical separation within the household; towards the intersection of early 20th-century child-centered pedagogy and modernist approaches to nursery and furniture design; through the changing consumption and sales practices of the postwar period marketing directly to children through television, film and other digital media; and into the present, where the line between the material culture of childhood and adulthood is increasingly blurred.

Traces the step-by-step development of twelve toy patterns encouraging creative designing by the beginner or advanced toymaker

In "Plastic Culture", British comics artist and illustrator Woodrow Phoenixxplores our relationship to toys in the twenty-first century, witharticular emphasis on Japan - an exporter of both merchandise and ideas.lastic Toys based on comics, movies and TV shows from "Astro Boy", "Godzilla"nd "Gatchaman", to "Power Rangers", "Sailor Moon" and "Pokemon" have had aowerful effect on the West, and have kick-started trends in design and populture that have crossed from Japan to the West and back East again. Withts blend of incisive analysis and stylish photography, this is a book thatill appeal to a wide range of readers: from those interested in the latestrends in contemporary art, to toy collectors young and old, and to anyoneith an interest in Japan's influence on contemporary pop culture.

A comprehensive, genre-defining survey of children's product and furniture design from Bauhaus to today Design for Children, a must-have book for all style-conscious and design-savvy readers, documents the evolution of design for babies, toddlers, and beyond. The book spotlights more than 450 beautiful, creative, stylish, and clever examples of designs created exclusively for kids - from toys, furniture, and tableware, to textiles, lights, and vehicles. Contemporary superstars and twentieth-century masters, including Philippe Starck, Nendo, Marc Newson, Piero Lissoni, Kengo Kuma, and Marcel Wanders, are showcased.

Ever changing, challenging and re-inventing, designer toys are in a never-ending state of flux. Old becomes new and new can become pioneering. Flux is an intimate and exciting journey through the idiosyncrasies of designer playthings - every artist featured offers you the chance to meet the quirky characters of their imagination, and see the world through their eyes.

A collection of high class designer toys from around the world