One of the great things about being a parent is that fact that, despite being an adult, one has the perfect excuse to buy all the toys that one never had as a child. Given that many of us live in open plan spaces these days, toys have ended up becoming interesting design objects liberally scattered about the home, well used and highly visible. Perhaps this explains the Scandinavian trend of creating beautifully crafted toys that often end up becoming highly collectable design objects for children and adults alike.
We’ve never made a secret of our love of simple wooden toys from Scandinavia, having previously written about lifeiscarbon® favourites such as Playsam, Brio and Micki Leksaker, so you can imagine our delight at the fact that Normann Copenhagen have announced the launch of their first toy.
Plane is a simple wooden aeroplane for children of all ages designed by the Danish graphic designer Ole Søndergaard. In the summer of 2005 Ole Søndergaard wrote the following in his diary: “Above me, in the distance can be heard the sound of the engine of a little sports plane. It is summer and the air is completely still. The sky is a brilliant blue and as always I am drawn when I see a plane in the sky. With an almost childlike joy I can permanently forget both time and place and soar up into the wide blue yonder". This extremely simplistic, minimalistic and almost symbolic approach to product design is rather characteristic of Ole Søndergaard’s work. Honored with design prizes and distinctions he has, during the course of his career, created innumerable pictograms, logos and the font ‘FF Signa’. Take a look below at more images of Plane and to read more about Ole Søndergaard:
Plane is made of lacquered wood and non-toxic paint, and will be available in black, red and blue from November 2008 onwards.
Ole Søndergaard studied graphic design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen. After working as a graphic designer at an architect's office between 1964 and 1971, he established his own design practice in 1973. Since 1966 he has also taught graphic design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen.
Between 1985 and 1995 he was co-founder and partner of Eleven Design A/S, designing signs and signposting systems for banks, office blocks and public buildings in Denmark, Sweden, and the Middle East.
He has designed corporate identity programmes, logotypes, annual and environmental reports, brochures, packaging and magazines for Danish and international companies, as well as designing complete alphabets and pictogram systems.
Ole also works and exhibits as an artist, especially with water colour, and is a member of the Danish Design Council and IIID. He has won a number of prizes, including The Danish Design Prize in 2002.
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