‘Hama Beads’ was selected by Hisae Igarashi(Interior Designer), Kazumasa Nagai (Graphic Designer) and Tomohiko Hirata (Industrial Designer). ‘Hama Beads’is produced by a Danish toy company, Malte Haaning Co. You can compose various pictorial images with the use of small beads with different colors. You put the beads on a board up to the images you want to represent and fix them with an iron-heat applied on the beads’ surfaces.

Ms. Igarashi , taking advantage of the special nature of Hama Beads to be fixed with the application of heat, gave us a completely different idea from conventional thought about the way to play with them. He made a cute lighting device by putting the colorful beads in a heart-shaped mold used for baking cakes, giving it heat in an oven and putting a light bulb in the produced heart-shaped box made of beads. Mr.Igarashi says “ You can make lighting devices and boxes for living rooms with the same feeling as you make cakes.” I felt this is something that you and your kids should try together.

Mr. Nagai reproduced a poster for an exhibition for kids with Hama Beads. It was made to be a graphic design with solidness. This work gave me a kind of profound taste with the subtle difference of the reflections of the light as well as the beads’ colors.

Mr. Hirata tried making a picture-book for adults with the use of Hama Beads. The model he took up as a designer was a prestigious Ferrari sports car. The message he sent to us by this work seems to be “ Why don’t you make the archives of your family memories?”

It was Kashiwa Sato (Art Director ) that selected Jovo’s Construction Toy. Jovo Block is a construction toy produced by a Danish company, Jovo International.
It is composed of the three kinds of parts of triangle, square and pentagon each of which comes with various colors. The most attractive element of this toy is that you can create various three-dimensional objects by combining these parts on a flat surface and then making it solid. With the simple triangular, square, rectangular and pentagonal parts in various colors, Mr. Sato made such items for a table as a place mat, a flower vase, a coaster and a tissue-paper box and so on. The idea is that using toys as parts for producing living-room items. I’m sure that if, at the party where kids gather, the kids are allowed to arrange their favorite food on the plates and coasters, the party will be more exciting. His presentation suggested that everyone could challenge and enjoy what he did.
To be continued

PHOTO:Yasuko Seki