The first of the designs are the ShapeMaker set of 25 colourful, geometric design, hand printed, beautifully crafted, environmentally friendly hardwood blocks.
The blocks are made of rubber wood - a replenishable wood which feels so beautifully smooth in your hands.
The blocks can be excitingly arranged to create a menagerie of thousands of surprising creatures and endless of imaginative, engaging images that guarantee to delight children and adults of all ages. The blocks perfectly illustrate millergoodman’s commitment to combine function with the highest design principles, producing beautiful, sensitive New Classics in the children’s market.
The more recent collection takes the blocks into 3D with even more possibilities for imagination to explore...
Young children will enjoy balancing the head and body shapes to make all sorts of funny creatures. Older children may prefer recreating the inventive 3D structures from the enclosed illustrations, giving them inspiration and confidence to build their own creations. The shapes are also an intriguing and imaginative plaything for adults - we've certainly had hours of fun with them at dinner parties.
Beautifully crafted from environmentally - friendly, durable rubberwood, the shapes feel soft in your hand and the flashes of colour add a modern accent. The set of shapes come in a printed, unbleached cotton drawstring bag along with a set of instructive illustrations.
Miller and Goodman clearly have an understanding of shape and colour which is not ony evident in their shapemakers but also in their books: A is for Artist
, Colour
, Shape
Produced in collaboration with Ella Doran and Tate UK each book explores its subject with wonderful pictures illustrations and bright colourful imagery. These books have been on our shelves at home read and reread, explored and brought to my girls an understanding of shape, colour and form.
Now my girls can explore shape, colour and form with the playshapes. And we've had to grab an extra set of the playshapes now too beacuse as soon as they're tipped out everyone in the room wants to play. The coffee table is shoved to the end of the room and the floor becomes a busy area of imaginative creations.
One of the things I love about the playshapes is that each time we play everyone creates and discovers something new, a new creature, person, scene, tower, village it is literally endless. There is even a flickr site dedicated to all the creations people have made.
Completely addictive, utterly brilliant, intriguing and imaginative the miller goodman blocks are a must for children and adults of all ages - they really are set to be an enduring design classic.
"We are very proud to have received a gold award for ShapeMaker with a score from the judges of 94% at the 2009 Practical Pre-School awards. This is our first industry toy award."
We believe imagination is contagious and these miller goodman shapes and blocks are a perfect example of how far your imagination can take you!
Take a look at the Flickr groups for Shapemaker and Playshapes
Discover Miller Goodman here and get creative too
If you'd like a further visual treat take a look at Zoe Miller and Dave Goodman's site Silence - their consultancy which helps creatives explore their ideas through still and moving image reference. Amazing.
This is part of our series of blog posts about the Story Behind our Collections - why we've chosen the designers that are in the boutique and how those designers came to be.
To see a bit more of what Sisters Guild is all about take a look at the A-Z of Sisters Guild here.
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We have the playshapes and my two love them (as do I!).
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