The physical relationship between a young child and an object is a fundamental aspect of early development.

For the last 10 years we have been designing children’s products that incorporate the core value of tactile play, as a counterpoint to our increasingly digital world.

As a part of this effort we created a publishing house, Owl & Dog Playbooks precisely to challenge the trend for digital interfaces in favour of physical interactions, in an open question of what children books can be. A book is not only about images and words, but an object that we touch, smell and play with, which is especially true for children.

Since 2016, we’ve been a regular contributor for OKIDO, a British Art and Science Kids monthly magazine developing and designing paper toys and games based around selected science themes.

Children products often have to be considered from multiple points of view as the purchaser and the user are often not the same.

We’ve worked with Muji and Djeco to design toys that are unique gifts, can be mass produced affordably and are a pleasure to play.

Djeco's creative team invited us to design a puzzle that could be combined into different figures or animals.

We have developed 27 colourful wooden pieces and a base board with pegs to pin them into. There are 4 basic animals you can make, Chicken, Dog, Pig and Rabbit, plus endless combinations of playful fantasy creatures. It is a puzzle with multiple possibilities and no wrong solutions.

Djeco is a popular french toy manufacturer who started making their first toys in 1954. They have been producing quality toys and games for children around the world with an emphasis on early years learning.

Origami Stamps are toys, combining rubber stamps and 3D paper making. Origami is great fun, although sometimes it is difficult to remember all the folds, so by using a rubber stamp we can precisely reproduce the same cuts and the same folds over and over again on varied backgrounds. Stamp, cut, fold and glue, this combination of actions which have to be completed in sequence is a great activity for parents and young children, as well as anyone who enjoys the pleasures of making things in paper.

We encourage to use the stamps on old magazines, allowing them a second lease of life instead of throwing them away, and also providing a great choice of backgrounds.

The “Frog maker” : These represent the rainforest frogs, and by using old magazines, the frogs become random and colourful

The “Train maker” : Wagons can be joined endlessly in a long line, a never ending train collection.

The stacking penguins are our first collaboration with Muji, a part of their collection of toys for Christmas 2013.

This toy comprises ten penguins which can be arranged in a circle and disappear, or can be stacked up as a balancing game.

The theme is a reference to how imperial penguins huddle in circles during the winter in order to keep warm and protect their young.

The shape is also a play on Reifendrehen, the unique toy making technique developed in the ore mountains in Germany. This process uses a wood lathe to produce a ring with the desired cross section, and when sliced it yields many small figures, usually animals. Reifendrehen represented an advance compared to traditional wood carving in that it quickly produced many figures with far fewer manufacturing steps. 

Images 1 to 3 courtesy of Muji

Children’s book design for Owl & Dog Playbooks

Winner of Academy of British Cover Design, children’s category

Flat Zoo is a book about animals. The story compares the natural abilities of each animal and it celebrates our differences.

The book comes with punch-out shapes which can be stacked up in different ways to make each one of the characters. You can read the story while you play with the animals.

All the animals can be kept together upright with the supplied circular base.

Produced by Owl & Dog Playbooks / Story Book illustration by Yosuke Watanabe

Available at www.owlanddog.com

This is a simple triangular frame to display small ornaments on the wall. Its function is displaying objects like a picture frame would display a photograph.

It consists of an aluminium L profile and a colourful rope, which is hung from a single nail from the wall. There are two sizes measuring 60 and 40 cm.

Available for manufacturing

This book is based around the idea of a pegboard, the sheet material used in workshops to hang tools.

The story and simple illustrations are created around the system of perforations. These perforations can also be used to add wooden pegs or thread yearn in order to add details to the illustrations.

British Book Design and Production Awards 2024 - Highly Commended

Available at Owl & Dog Playbooks

Children’s book design for Owl & Dog Playbooks

Winner of British Book Design and Production Award - Children’s book category

Children’s book design for Owl & Dog Playbooks

Toy design proposal

Children’s book/craft design for Owl & Dog Playbooks

This is a board book that uses bold colours and a unique format, where each page is an overlapping semi-circular shape to create all the different faces. The appearing and disappearing people throughout the book's pages are a nod to peek-a-boo games and will encourage toddlers to be involved and interested.

When closed, the book’s pages come together to form a rainbow of colour and shapes.

D&AD Award 2022, Wood Pencil winner in Book Design Category

Academy of Book Cover Design Award 2022, Shortlisted in Children’s Book Category

The brand ‘Rainbow Bay‘ is trademarked.

Guess Who is a set of three booklets with three riddles that children need to guess which animals.

“I am as big as a house… but scared of a little mouse”, follow all the clues while you unfold the books, then turn around to reveal the answers. The books will transform into the animal figures (Elephant, Dog and Monkey) of the clues.

Designed for Owl & Dog Playbooks

East London Comics and Arts Festival (ELCAF) is London’s biggest annual festival dedicated to showcasing the best in comics, illustration, sequential art, and storytelling.

We were invited to join their Haul 2021, as they were not able to hold the festival this year due to covid-19.

This is a playful set of stickers that can be cut up in different ways and combined to make up characters, which can be applied to objects for customisation.

We wanted to propose the idea of 2D graphics applied onto 3D objects and provide a great degree of creative freedom, so no two characters are the same.

Multi functional wall mounted hangers for Spanish brand BALVI

Creating a brand from the ground up is both challenging and very rewarding.

We entered this new market and came up with ideas for innovative products, and developed them into Owl&Dog Playbooks, a children publishing house producing playful titles which explore new formats of board books.

Aside from the creation of the products we also designed the brand and all its applications.

The logo is a direct reference to the owl (representing the wise, studious learner, the reader) and the dog (playful, boisterous, mischievous). Both animals are simplified to the maximum, and come together as a simple block to underpin the ethos of the brand.

At some point we stopped handing out name cards in fairs and events, which are wasteful and often redundant. We substituted them for stamps that are unique and can be used on wasted paper and paper bags. It can be cutout and folded into a little character, which truly represents the playfulness of the brand.

More about the books, please visit www.owlanddog.com