Children’s Drawings Come Alive with IKEA’s New Range of Soft Toys

IKEA have a reputation for doing things differently. Their flat-pack furniture has revolutionised the way we furnish our homes, allowing all of us to have stylish design at an affordable price. But they’re not resting on their laurels. IKEA’s most recent bid to enchant their customers has been to allow children to design their products.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if those brightly coloured drawings of monsters and unicorns parents proudly display around the house were to somehow come alive? Well, short of it becoming a plot for the next Pixar film, it’s probably not going to happen. But the next best thing is modelling those drawings in 3D and building them in soft fabric, making those enchanting drawings tangible, something a child can actually play with. The distinctive lines that kids make when drawing a monster’s mouth or the legs of a tiger are characteristic of a type of drawing we all did once, but find difficult to emulate as we get older. By allowing children to design toys for production, they are not only bringing into being young people’s dreams, but providing children with something they can relate to. Rather than sterile, clinical production line versions of teddy bears (cute as they may be), they are being presented with something vivid and unconventional, and unique in its design. The tiger’s legs are all in a row and that bat’s wings are upside down, and what’s a unicorn supposed to look like anyway? But that’s exactly what makes them so brilliant. See for yourself:

All images courtesy of IKEA.