Photo care of WSJ
According to the article:
In 2010, Vulli sold 816,000 giraffes in France, and 828,000 babies were born, meaning that nearly every French newborn got one.
The giraffe’s international success is partly contributed to parent’s continued concerns about toy safety.
Googly Eyes are out and about town…
…more can be found at The Happiest Street Art In The World blog post at Beautiful/Decay.
I often hear from parents that their children use stickers to decorate everything: tables, windows, furniture, the TV. While parents might feel that this clashes with their decorative aesthetic, it is interesting that children have a natural inclination to decorate and make use of the stickers in such a way.
In an interesting exploration of that theme, Yayoi Kusama’s new art installation at Queensland Gallery of Modern Art took a blank canvas in the form of a plain, white room and provided children with thousands of stickers.
The results below:
More images and information via thisiscolossal.com.
Anna at The Imagination Tree used our Serabeena Confetti Glue Pens and sand play dough to make glittery novelty cookies.
More information over at her blog post.
Serabeena-designed Confetti Glue Pens are available exclusively at Early Learning Centre stores worldwide.
Check out this really cool interactive Animal Alphabet called Bembo’s Zoo. Especially good for typographers and people interested in fonts.
Image care of vincigenius.com
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (the C.C.F.C.) has announced their Worst Toy of the Year Award for 2011. The Toady award which stands for “Toys Oppressive and Destructive to Young Children” nominates a few select toys every year that are, as the name implies, oppressive and destructive to kids.
This year a Tablet PC called Vinci Genius takes the top prize.
For more check out this opinion piece from the New York Times and a tech review of the device from Gadgesteria.
image care of Wacky Owl
According to recent news reports, Lego will shoot their new film Down Under.
What will the film be about? This Vanity Fair piece has a few funny suggestions.
Also, check out these clever Lego movie posters over at Wacky Owl.
photo care of dijitalfix.com
Came across this list of top 10 films featuring toys from Richard Gottlieb over at Global Toy News.
Is a Balloon really a toy? If it’s not a toy, what else could it be?
Good list with all classic films, but what about “Big” with Tom Hanks? “Toys” with Robin Williams was quite dark but toys featured a central theme in the film.
photo care of spydersden.wordpress.com
photo care of http://upload.wikimedia.org/
image care of njekaterina via flickr
Some interesting toy statics from a recent article featured in the magazine The Economist. The article mostly applies to consumer trends in Europe, but speaks of the different buying habits of the English, French, Germans and Italians. The British toy market appears much more driven by licensed goods. UK parents are even labelled by the UNICEF as encouraging “compulsive consumerism” in children. Yikes!
Some interesting highlights from the article:
– British parents buy an average of 41 toys per year, which is almost a toy per week. In Spain, by contrast, children receive few toys outside the Christmas season.
– About one-quarter of toy sales in Britain are licence-driven, which means they are based on characters from Disney films or television series such as the popular “Peppa Pig” and “Fireman Sam”. The proportion in Germany is just 14%.
– Dolls account for fully 16.8% of toy sales in Spain, compared with 9.7% in Britain and just 7.9% in Germany. Italians buy a disproportionate number of toys from small, local makers.
photo care of jonny.hunter’s flickr stream
There is much talk these days about the amount of time children spend playing video games but according to a recent survey in the UK reported by the Guardian newspaper, kids actually just want to ride their bicycles:
Research…asked children what they wanted to spend more time doing – and 54% of children questioned said they’d like to play on their bikes, while 52% elected to spend more time playing on their computer consoles.
A definite relief for parents concerned with the high costs of hi-tech toys.
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