Three fourth of human’s brain is developed in preschool, so we are told by lots of psychologist. In this critical period of one’s life, the best buddy for kids is toys, children’s song and fairy tale. During these years, China has made great progress on toy development and research. The market is no longer dominated by overseas brands any more. The stage for domestic designers is getting wider.

Recently, I have a talk with several designers on works of toys. Some of their novel ideas might be good reference for us.

Give prominence to theme

When designing a toy, we firstly should be clear about the aim and target. Toys should be developed according to psychological and physiological development on different ages. For instance, kids between 2 to 4 years old would always imitate what they are interested in, and it is the best stage for parents to carry out education concerning language and object identification. Dishware, medical appliance and model provide a role-play environment for kids. Toys for this stage should offer abundant content for them to learn language in an interactive way.

Function integration

We can make a toy into a practical product that can be used in a long time. Since kids are developing quickly, what is changing most is kids’ interest in things. They might easily lost interest to toys that coming with pure playing function. Therefore, designers are expected to integrate different function to endow toys more abundant playing methods. It would make toy be played in longer time. For instance, writing board, learning system, assembling car and DIY crafts are good attempt.

Rolling up trendy products

In fact, lots of realms are rather influenced by Chinese traditional culture. Our ancestors have made great success on toy design, who produced a great number of toys that reflecting oriental wisdom. However, these toys appear to be outdated in playing method as well as packaging. But we could make slight change based on original design, adding latest updated element and new vitality. Package, design, outlook and color can all see creative idea. Peg-top, kite and lantern are pattern for innovation.

Let it be a series

In current toy market, lots of makers indulge themselves in imitating others’ design. They make less effort on producing something in a complete series. It results in flooding of single or similar product in market. We should not consider toy as isolated product, instead, we should bear in mind the notion of “systematism”. Kids’ growing and developing must be considered when we combine playing value and practical use together. Toy should be put among a whole entertaining and practical series. For example, toy and learning desk in furniture style, which is blend with furniture for kids.