Toy Design

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Toys, fulfilling as they do one of mankind’s most basic needs, have existed for as long as we have. From the earliest times both adults and children have used toys to simulate reality or simply to pass time. Renowned designers, artists and architects have always tried their hand at creating from Frank Lloyd Wright’s work with Fröbel’s building blocks to Josef Hartwig’s Bauhaus chess set that is still produced today. Gerrit Rietveld, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Breuer and Andy Warhol also designed toys. However, most often it was craftsmen and women – such as the seamstress Margarete Steiff (Steiff teddy bears), the carpenters Christiansen (Lego), or the cabinet-maker Hans Beck (Playmobil) – who designed the most successful and enduring toys. Toys for small children are often distinguished by a high level of abstraction (babies’ toys, for example, typically have fluid contours, simplified detail drawings and primary colors), although timeless designer toys such as those produced by Naef cross all age limits and can even be found on executive desks. This volume in the “Design” series presents both contemporary designer toys and classic toys that are still on the market.