Category archive: parent company

August 6, 2015

Kidpost Upgrade

Kidpost was created by some awesome, web-savvy parents to share photos with less plugged-in relatives and friends. It solves a small but real challenge, and it does it very thoughtfully. And now they have upgraded. Read co-creator Khoi Vinh's...
[read the full post...]

June 7, 2015

The Sounds Of Spring By Lullatone

Lullatone, the Nagoya-based music family of Yoshimi and Shawn James Seymour, have released the final EP in their seasons-based set, "The Sounds of Spring." It's as great as ever. Until I read this little interview, I'd forgotten that Seymour...
[read the full post...]

May 10, 2015

Build Any Mobile Lactation Suite And The World Better Beat A Path To Your Door

The idea for Mamava portable breastpumping cabins came from a 2006 New York Times story about how hard it is for non-white-collar moms to find time to pump breast milk at work.Years of design, testing, and bootstrapping startup ups...
[read the full post...]

January 29, 2015

MODERNCHILD Closing Sale This Week

I am very bummed at the news that the online shop Modernchild is closing. Tien was a pioneer and a great supporter of modern and independent kids design, and she has a terrific eye. It was an honor to have...
[read the full post...]

December 9, 2014

Meet The Kinder Modern Patinator

It feels like more of a Style section piece, or maybe a Home section feature about product lines and Stuff, but even though there are no prices or renovation costs, the NY Times has put this nice story about...
[read the full post...]

December 2, 2014

Tiny Female Architect Count At Tiny Modernism

Archinect is running a giveaway for Tiny Modernism, the architecture-themed onesie sublabel of Alex & Kaori Walter's Belly Sesame kids clothing collection. To win, all you need to do is, by Dec. 8, "tell us which dream combination of...
[read the full post...]

September 4, 2014

Dallas Clayton [Hearts] Hearts

It's hard to be grumpy around LA artist/renaissance dad Dallas Clayton. For example, here's how he's selling this onesie:If you're buying this, chances are you are in a pretty amazing place right now. You've just had a baby, or...
[read the full post...]

January 22, 2014

Kidpost Will Automatically Email Kidpics To Whomever You Want

FINALLY. As Jason said, every parent who codes has imagined doing something like Kidpost, and it's great that someone as sharp and sensitive as Khoi Vinh is doing it. Kidpost is promising to solve the problem of sending the...
[read the full post...]

November 19, 2013

Rockytoy Story

M V Gopalan founded a great wooden toy manufacturer in Madras, southern India, in 1942. It was first called Modern Agencies, but it came to be called Rockytoy because they were making rocking horses that everyone wanted. The scale of...
[read the full post...]

September 4, 2013

Outside The Lines: Artists Mega-Coloring Book By Souris Hong-Porretta

LA art/style/culture blogger Souris Hong-Porretta has spent the last couple of years pulling together an epic-sized artist coloring book, and now it's done. Outside The Lines has coloring pages from over 100 artists--119, actually, I just counted--and it looks...
[read the full post...]

June 18, 2013

Kalon Caravan Pink Crib Giving Me Uncomfortable Feelings

Oh, what is going on? Why am I feeling this way? We were so determined to thwart the Pink Industrial Complex with the kid, and we generally succeeded. With K2, we have basically failed miserably. The experience leads me...
[read the full post...]

November 5, 2012

Rock On, PlyPlay!

Any week that starts out with a new, handmade, small-batch, molded birch ply kid object is automatically guaranteed to be better than the week before it, hurricane, blackout, or no. So high five to St Louis dad/designer Jon Marten on...
[read the full post...]

September 10, 2012

Wee Built This: Weerol Evolving Plaything

Santa Cruz dad Derek Perkins began working on the Weerol a year ago, when his kid was two. The design objectives: a goodlooking, high-quality toy that adapts to a kid's play patterns as he gets older, thus eliminating a...
[read the full post...]

June 21, 2012

The Family That Plays Together Eats Food Out Of A Bag Together

Holy moley, I see the headline on Matt Ritchel's NYT longread about baby food in a squeezebag, and I'm like, "Wait, exactly what family ritual is being squeezed here, exactly? The ritual of spooning mashed carrots into a Ziploc...
[read the full post...]

June 12, 2012

Looks Great, Less Fulfilling: Box Play Stickers

I think we can all agree that Box Play's stickers for recycling empty, little cardboard packaging into toys are awesome. As awesome as they are unnecessary. They're the Swiffer of imaginative play, a slick, quick, and highly satisfying replacement...
[read the full post...]

March 5, 2012

Modular Ply Playhouse Cubes By Play-Modern

Well, these are cool. Play Modern is a modular ply cube playhouse system designed by Kansas City architect Kimball Hales and, uh, Mrs. Hales. Ah, here we go: Laura. BYU alums, in case the names didn't give it away...
[read the full post...]

August 25, 2011

The Kid Should See This

Obviously, The Kid Should See This, Rion Nakaya's new project, undertaken with her 3-yo kid, to find awesome, educational video and photography online that a kid should see, is just awesome. Here's just one of the many things the kid...
[read the full post...]

July 12, 2011

Tatt.ly: Awesome Design Tattoos In Short

Oh, Swiss Miss, you have gone straight for Adolf Loos's heart, and I wish you all the best. Here is Loos in his "Ornament as Crime":The Papuan tattoos in short everything he can lay hands on, he is not a...
[read the full post...]

May 30, 2011

The Minimii Arne Jacobsen Dollhouse Is A Rareified Object.

Well, it didn't arrive in time for Christmas 2009, but it's available for 2011. And assuming you stopped buying anything else in anticipation of its arrival, you might have enough socked away. Of course, I'm talking about the Arne Jacobsen...
[read the full post...]

May 18, 2011

Sweet Kalon Echo Toddler Crib, Sweetest Nymph!

Now that everyone's quiet and in the frame of mind to discuss high-design, thousand-dollar children's beds... HOLY SMOKES, PEOPLE, THE KALON ECHO TODDLER BED! Every penny you were thinking of dropping on an Aino Aalto should now go into...
[read the full post...]

May 11, 2011

Oeuf Sparrow Crib Probably Still 20% Off At ModernSeed

Modern Seed is having a 20% off sale on its current stock of sweet, birch Oeuf Sparrow cribs. Though I love the $730 Sparrow in its original grey finish, for $146 off, I could certainly learn to love the...
[read the full post...]

May 3, 2011

First Cleats Kicking Baby Butt!

So they were all,...an innovative, first of its kind in the world, infant sport cleat! We are www.firstcleats.com Our little soft and safe cleats (0 to 6 mos.) are designed after big kids soccer, football, baseball cleats. These little...
[read the full post...]

November 23, 2010

Adorable WASP Moppetwear By CPC Designs

The wife picked up one of these cute little CPC Design corduroy jumpers--made in Philadelphia! Design your own from the many grosgrain ribbon and monogramming options available!--for K2 at the Junior League's Holiday Trunk Show. But then, you could...
[read the full post...]

November 8, 2010

Would I Lytot You? Those Are Pacifier-Sunglasses.

Oh, did I drive the Mrs. crazy while we were walking around Amsterdam this weekend. Actually, she'd just keep walking whenever I some kid-related freakshow would catch my eye, and I'd have to stop and take a picture. These,...
[read the full post...]

September 28, 2010

Whoa, Camel, Kalon Hut-Hut Rocker Now Available In Resin

I still have my suspicions that the Kalon Hut-Hut isn't actually a rocking toy, but a Fifth Element-style, 5-dimensional CNC-carved key to a wormhole in our saddle-slash-Pringles-shaped universe. Now that they've announced a $125 version molded from 100% recycled...
[read the full post...]

September 16, 2010

Alright, Southern California, Show Me Your H.U.D.D.L.E. Toobs

Four years ago, Daddy Types was the only Internet mention of Toobs, the awesome modular/homebrew/adaptive reuse children's furniture collection by Los Angeles designers Penny and Jim Hull. The Hulls and their new company, Hull Urban Design, Development, Etc., or...
[read the full post...]

May 18, 2010

Bing, MegaBing

Wow, how hard must it suck for Microsoft to traipse in and name their also-ran search engine after your adorable, troublemaking throwback boardbook bunny? Pretty hard, I'm guessing. Ted Dewan published the first of his ten Bing Bunny books...
[read the full post...]

April 22, 2010

Damn, But That Is One Gigantic Kids Tub

I'll say it again: damn, but that is one gigantic kids tub. Safety Tub Kids inventor Adam Schwartz [in tub, left], a father of a 2yo, told the NY Times' Joyce Wadler he got the idea, "three months into me...
[read the full post...]

April 7, 2010

Mansfield Dad Still Working Out The Details Of His Cradle Of The Future

Despite neither being for sale at Christmas 2009 for £160 nor actually existing in the physical world, the Babycotpod's pod-shaped baby cot, the Cascara was awarded three stars for durability by Baby Hampshire Magazine. Working backwards from their editors'...
[read the full post...]

February 17, 2010

Playhouse Modern: Emerson House By Brinca Dada

From the twittering sound of things, I am the only dadblogger who didn't make it to Toy Fair 2010 this year. So I'll have to wait to see the Emerson, a new modernist dollhouse by brinca dada [that's day-duh,...
[read the full post...]

November 30, 2009

Changing The Changing Table: Kalon Studios Changing Trunk

First things first: I love Kalon Studios. They came up with beautifully made bamboo cribs with excellent detailing a couple of years ago, and they're still at it. And they've expanded. The IoLine Changing Trunk. Not a table, a...
[read the full post...]

November 17, 2009

Hey You! Go To Shrimp Shop This Saturday In Los Angeles

Andy from Stork Bites Man and Ryan from The South Willard are having a colabo joint for kids starting this weekend. It's called the Shrimp Shop. Here's just a taste of what to expect:Boro Pants Ceramic Mobiles Creative Playthings...
[read the full post...]

October 5, 2009

Fresco Fiamma Di Bloom: Un Seggiolone Rosso Molto Fantastico

I know that since the rather spectacular limited edition, red-enameled Fresco Fiamma high chair was introduced like three weeks ago at ABC Kids in Las Vegas, I'm a bit late to the Bloom game. To make up for it,...
[read the full post...]

August 27, 2009

Bam!

And that, my friends, is how you sell a bassinet in a depression. Argington just announced their newest, greenest, and cheapest nursery furniture ever, and I think it might just rock. The Bam Collection is available in birch or solid...
[read the full post...]

July 20, 2009

They Giveaway So Fast: Magic Beans 5th Birthday Daily Drawings

It feels like just yesterday when a couple of new parents emailed to say they were opening a cool baby store near Boston. And whaddya know, they're five and giving away amazing stuff every single day to celebrate Magic...
[read the full post...]

July 12, 2009

Ninetonine Kids Furniture Son Grande y Mas Blanco

Ninetonine is a Madrid-based kids furniture company launched by Alberto Marcos and Sacha Bancroft Cooke. Their designs were floating around last year, but it seems like they've actually gone into production and heavy press releaseification this past spring. All...
[read the full post...]

June 14, 2009

Unistroller? Strollerbarrow? Awesomeness On Wheels

Strollers look the way they do because strollers look the way they do. Japanese strollers are all spindly, floppy little chairs. Jogging strollers looked liked hacked up biketents. Scandinavian strollers are all grocery cart-like, outdoor sleeping tanks. A wave...
[read the full post...]

June 10, 2009

Puj Origami Tub

Ooh, that's nice. The Puj tub [rhymes with judge, fudge, kludge, nudge, smudge--whoops, got carried away there. I blame the kid and her infernal car ride games.] Anyway, the Puj tub is an ingeniously shaped and scored foam sheet...
[read the full post...]

June 2, 2009

The Kid Who Grew Up In The House On Pooh Corner

I just found this drawing by Mike Mills on his Humans blog. It was from his show this spring at Pool Gallery in Berlin, titled, "The only way out is through":With the help of drawings, pamphlets, historic findings and...
[read the full post...]

May 29, 2009

wee see: Video Tai-Chi For Babies

The whole problem with the "Oh, my 6-month-old just loves Baby Einstein! I put her in front of it and she's transfixed!" concept of baby videos is precisely the transfixed part. It's not that she's so into Baby Einstein,...
[read the full post...]

May 28, 2009

Mecha Bojesen Mega Auction

Though Kay Bojesen has been reduced to expensive teak monkeys today, back in the day, he was a veritable one-Dane, wooden Playmobil, replicating even the most random corners of the modern world in his signature, modernist toy style. At...
[read the full post...]

May 19, 2009

MasonGray: ducduc, Ethan. Ethan, ducduc

We were out of town, so I missed it, but I haven't seen much interesting kid-related news at all coming out of the ICFF expo in New York last weekend. And one of the bigger launches has barely registered...
[read the full post...]

April 21, 2009

Recycled? And How: Color Me House Cardboard House Wins Dr. Toy Award, Costco Deal

I've been covering the children's cardboard industry long enough to know that recycling is the norm. What I don't do, though, is go around trading on my purported reputation as a toy expert by anointing straightup knockoffs with meaningless...
[read the full post...]

April 7, 2009

Atelier XT: Portuguese Indie Furniture

I've had this in my browser for weeks now, and I realized what was holding me back: I wanted to post just about everything in Atelier XT's 6,000+ flickr stream. Graca Paz and her husband Francisco are artists living...
[read the full post...]

January 15, 2009

Mr Private Equity And Little Miss Licensing

I guess I didn't grow up in an Anglophilic enough house, because I didn't know about Roger Hargreaves' Mr. Men and Little Miss series until the kid was born. [The wife, on the other hand, had them at school....
[read the full post...]

December 18, 2008

Stork Tools: Help Me, Rebel Alliance-Lookin' Diaper Bag, You're My Only Hope

Dr. Moz began helping out the new dads with a humorous-yet-informative [? informative-yet-humorous?] DVD, The Goodfather. Now the cinematic allusions and dad-affirmation have made the jump to hyperspace as it were, with the Stork Tools collection of diaper bags....
[read the full post...]

December 10, 2008

Nice Lice, Baby: Awesome Norwegian Lice Sweater Bodysuits From Ugly

These are Norwegian Lice Body Sweaters from Ugly Children's Clothing, an Oslo company started by three guys who, when the kids arrived, discovered that "Even though approximately one half of the babies in the world are boys, it seems...
[read the full post...]

December 1, 2008

Ceci N'est Pas Un Aibo Onesie

Two Blue Cars is a Brooklyn outfit that makes awesome t-shirts for boys, like this Onesie-style [1] bodysuit with an Aibo-style [2] robot dog on it. Too bad there's nothing for girls, but gender coding runs deep, even in...
[read the full post...]

September 28, 2008

Took The Kid To Crafty Bastards, Er, "The Craft Fair"

So the kid and I went to Crafty Bastards after church today. We were overdressed and underinked. Still, we got to meet Spooky Daddy in person, which was awesome. He was working the puppetmaster thing pretty spectacularly, and it...
[read the full post...]

September 22, 2008

Kid O Toys Arrive, Are Awesome

You know, I was just wondering to myself the last few weeks, "Where are those Kid O toys I was promised would be hitting the market soon?" And here they are. Wow. Educational clarity and simplicity of design that...
[read the full post...]