🐐 Robot goats, Greenlandic myths and pepper mills
New year, new book, new projects!
Well Big Kids, it’s been over a year since my last message. In part, because I didn’t want to clog peoples inboxes with noise. But I come across a lot of very interesting things each week, and have been asked to share more. And so, I shall.
As it’s a new year, feel free to re-assess whether this newsletter is for you. In a nutshell I touch on:
TECHNOLOGY
I’m Principal AI design researcher at Canva and if I may indulge, there’s a lot of interesting stuff to talk about.
DESIGN FOR KIDS
I’m an award-winning childrens author. I have thoughts on playful design and joyful writing. As well as some hard-won lessons on how to navigate the publishing industry.
CRAFT
I make things. Often terribly but the effort is endearing. I’m currently learning how to carve wood so I can make physical toys.
This week I made and launched a new project I like quite a lot actually, called Book & Bot. You can check it out at www.bookandbot.com Take a look if it tickles you, and of course, sharing goes an incredibly long way.
Now onto the good bits!
Get writing! Here's a tiny prompt that may spark new story ideasFrom Erin Via Robin Sloan
Greenlandic mythology is not for the squeamish. "The qivittoq (the mountain wanderer) is a person who has left their village or settlement in shame and wandered into the mountains. For a qivittoq to gain magical powers, the person has to freeze to death over the course of five days."
This got me thinking about all kinds of stories where the main character freezes, and awakens to new powers and a new life. I’m particularly stuck on a tale of a girl who freezes in a circus hot dog freezer and wakes up in a new land 🌭 Did you write anything from this prompt? Let me know!
My favourite playful web picks for the month.Find your flow with Sound Scapes to write to: I recorded some background sounds to write to.
Re-imagine ‘sitting’ in the classroom with Playful seating for kids: I just applied for a PhD, and have been contemplating how ‘research’ looks. Delighted by projects that focus on making.
Get into gaming with It takes two: My partner and I just finished and had the most excellent time playing.
Polish your product and research craft with Play test with kids: resources for the designers, PM’s and researchers out there.
Peep this pet robot for kids that reached over $3 MILLION in pledges. Has anyone bought this? I’m keen for a tried and tested review from families.
Mute distracting notifications, grab a warm cuppa and find a seat in the sun.Play Mountain by Noguchi is one of my favourite urban design projects
[Noguchi] couldn’t shake the thought that playgrounds were the perfect way for a sculptor to make real change in the world….This giant ziggurat wouldn’t come with any specific instructions. It would have no rules and no single obvious way to play with it. Noguchi wanted Play Mountain to be a strange new landscape that would dare children to imagine other realities so that perhaps they could grow up into creative, open-minded adults. In fact, the concept for Play Mountain started for Noguchi when he was a little boy.
Something well thunk and beautifully made!These Pepper Mills by Cas Holman. Cas’s instagram is such a treasure trove of delightful design and their playful pepper mills have been on my mind for years.
For Christmas I got a Dremel, with all of the wood carving bits and bobs. And for the past 2 weeks I’ve been covered in wood shavings. No wood near me is safe from my will to shape it. It’s re-ignited a flame in me to design toys. Real toys. Ones you can hold and play with, not just flat digital products.
If you like this newsletter, share it with a friend you also think will like it! 💖 This helps my projects find the right friends so they can become more plentiful.
Love this! Congratulations on your new book!