Best Innovative Toy Design | Junior Design Awards 2020
We love nothing better than discovering creative, inventive and innovative toy designs - here are the winners for 2020 in our first ever, best innovative toy design category...
JUNIOR DESIGN AWARDS 2020 GOLD WINNER: Best Innovative Toy Design
WHO: Tonies Box
WHAT: A portable, digital audio player designed for children that is activated by placing a Tonie - one of a cast of figurine characters - on top.
WHY: Our judges loved the tactile quality of the Toniebox and the exciting range of Tonie figures that you place on top to trigger an audio adventure, be it a story, some favourite music or a child’s own recorded creation. This portable cube looks fun and stylish, is robustly made and is a great way of giving children the controls and a sense of independence, all the time knowing that the content has been pre-edited and is completely safe and appropriate. The panel was extremely impressed by the wide range of story characters available (The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom, The Lion King and The Jungle Book to mention a few) and the option for children to record and upload up to 90 minutes of their own, or existing, audio files onto blank Creative-Tonie characters, via the free Tonie-App.
This is a great concept and so brilliantly executed.
Aesthetically pleasing. Great concept!
WHERE: Tonies
JUNIOR DESIGN AWARDS 2020 JOINT SILVER WINNER: Best Innovative Toy Design
WHO: Play Pouch
WHAT: An Australian owned and designed, double-sided drawstring storage pouch that opens up to create a play mat. This interactive Play Pouch is double sided & cleverly designed with both mother & child in mind, offering beautiful outside prints to complement current interior trends and fun interactive scenes on the inside to encourage creative play & offer hours of playful fun!
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WHY: Our judges loved these durable, capacious and beautifully designed double-sided play pouches, which can stow away vast amounts of toys and then unfurl to create a wonderful contained play mat. The eye friendly, Scandi-inspired fabrics that would suit any décor impressed our judges greatly and they also loved the interactive play scenes on the inside designed to encourage creative play. The very handy, zippable patch pockets (for storing something you really need to find later!) were also noted. So many of our judges commented on how great it was that toys could be scooped up into one easy bag, meaning no lego underfoot and a mess free floor in minutes.
Love something that’s multifunctional! Beautiful designs.
A durable material for dual use as play mat and storage bag. Fun, interactive designs for imaginative play with or without toys. A real find for parents who seem to spend all day tidying toys.
WHERE: Play Pouch
JUNIOR DESIGN AWARDS 2020 JOINT SILVER WINNER: Best Innovative Toy Design
WHO: Edx Education Rainbow Pebbles
WHAT: A pack of 36 tactile, soft edged pebbles in different colours and sizes designed to encourage creativity and the development of fine motor skills.
WHY: Our judges were impressed to learn that these super tactile and eye-pleasing soft edge pebbles in array of rainbow colours are currently one of the best selling educational toys on Amazon and were very excited that something so simple and so lovely to look at could have such a positive impact on developing fine motor skills and encouraging children’s counting, sorting and creative abilities. Our panel also noted that the pebbles come in an eco-friendly version, made from rice husks - a great option for eco-conscious parents.
What an absolutely fabulous idea! So simple yet, so effective. The pebbles are beautifully soft and smooth for tiny hands.
Stacking challenge is fun and love the bright colours.
WHERE: EdxEducation
JUNIOR DESIGN AWARDS 2020 BRONZE WINNER: Best Innovative Toy Design
WHO: International Elf Service
WHAT: Advent-style personalised Christmas Elf Letter Bundles from the North Pole that mysteriously appear around the house during the countdown to Christmas.
WHY: Anything that makes the build-up to Christmas more magical and exciting is a great thing by us and our judges were extremely impressed with these incredibly thoughtful and intricately produced Advent letters that really bring Santa’s imminent journey and his faithful workshop elves to life. Giving children the excitement of finding a letter just for them, every day, is such a lovely Christmas tradition and our judges loved not only the attention to detail and nurturing of imaginations but the the fact that these letters encourage reading for pure pleasure. The International Elf Service’s incredible dedication to producing an entirely eco-friendly product also scored highly with our panel.
We really like this idea!
A truly lovely tradition that children will look forward to year after year.
Great idea & exciting for children. So detailed!
Exceptional level of detail from paper quality, to font and picture design. I love the idea of letter bundles and a real correspondence between children and the xmas elves. A wonderful idea to keep the magic of make believe alive all year round with not just Elf letters but fairy worry blast letters too. The International Elf Service really does deliver.
WHERE: International Elf Service