I am a creative writer who is the child of a kindergarten teacher. Perhaps this is why I immediately fell in love with eeBoo, which creates toys, games, notebooks, arts supplies, and other gifts for children and full-grown people who other people sometimes mistake for children. eeBoo’s products are all original and use artwork commissioned from children’s book illustrators. As a writer/artist, I loved the company’s focus on arts and crafts, including storytelling and writing. Late last week, I wrote a post about some of my favorite eeBoo products.
Many of eeBoo products have earned the Oppenheim Best Toy Awards, which, if you spend any time in children/game sections of stores you will probably recognize:
Envy led me to Mia Galison, the president and creative director of eeBoo, whose headquarters are located in a turn of the century ballroom in New York City (what?!?!!). I hid my jealousy and asked her some questions about her magical job.
1. A lot of your products, including a fairy tale board game and many whimsical notebooks, encourage people to share their own stories. In a few sentences, describe your life as an enchanted tale — stick to the main plot points, but feel free to add dragons, witches, and fairy god mothers here and there.
I was the old woman who lived in a shoe. I had three children in less than two years and my husband was a self employed artist. I was a tortoise moving slowly, but I kept saying to myself “I think I can, I think I can.” There were no fairy godmothers to help or dragons to threaten, just a lot of smart, kind and helpful friends, family and associates that made the hard work mostly a pleasure. After what seemed like an endless journey, eeBoo became a goose that laid golden eggs.
2. Please describe the design process at eeBoo.
Most often I have an idea while walking to work or sorting through junk at a flea market –or cooking, or staring into space.
Most often I have an idea while walking to work or sorting through junk at a flea market –or cooking, or staring into space. I flip it around in my head–what the colors wills be, the package, the artist I’ll get to make the illustrations, that sort of thing. Then I ask [my husband] Sax about it. We walk back and forth from work every day so we have a block of time both in the morning and afternoon to discuss things. Sometimes he has good ideas and sometimes he makes me mad because he doesn’t see what I see, but even if we disagree it helps me firm up my vision of the project. I have ideas all the time. When I feel particularly buzzed about one I get started right away by calling an illustrator and sending him or her a sketch- and I get the art started. When it is a new format I get letters out to manufacturers so I can see prototypes and get prices. Often I make my own prototype in the office. Once I get some art in-house, I start to work with one of the three designers that work at eeBoo. Sometimes that means seeing a box cover design or making patterns. Sometimes it means experimenting with something completely new, like folded paper hats. I stick all my current ideas that I’m really considering on a big bulletin board. We are always working on new projects and new formats, and whatever I think I can get to market during a given season, I make..and keep the rest for the next season.
3. My mom is a kindergarten teacher. She is also the mother of a 26-year-old writer (me). Name one eeBoo product that would equally fit the bill for both parties.
We make very nice quality pastels that everyone would probably like.
4. Is your studio as amazing as it looks in the pictures? If it is more amazing, then what wonders does it contain that I can’t see in the pictures?
Our studio is in fact as amazing as it looks photos. It was built as a ballroom at the turn of the century and has 18 foot ceiling 60 running feet of skylights, mosaic floor made of yellow marble pieces, 10 foot windows and a large staircase down to what used to be the kitchen where my husband Saxton Freymann has his photograph and painting studio. What you don’t see in the photos is how many wonderful things are being made there. We are always experimenting with papers and fabrics and new materials. eeBoo also has ten lovely employees that would never allow anyone to take their pictures.
5. What are you visually inspired by?
I can be inspired by many things. Among many other things, I like Japanese illustrators from the 1930′s and 40′s, Chinese deco rugs from the 1920’2, the color pink, Belgian encaustic tiles, brand new Shanghai style, silhouettes, American quilts and naive embroidery, Hmong fabric from Chiang Mai. Unique objects that look as thought they were made for children by their mother or father with love. Embroidered blankets, crocheted hats, handmade wooden toys and stuffed animals. I could go on and on.
6. EeBoo makes lots of games for children (some of which have won awards). This makes me wonder what non-EeBoo games you play. Let’s say you’re inviting a bunch of your adult friends over for game night. Which five games do you have on the middle of your table when they arrive? (Bonus question: What snacks are next to the games?)
We are not a big game playing family but we have played a lot of Bananagrams
7. What is your best-selling product? What product are you most proud of?
I Never Forget A Face was one of our early products and I’m very proud of it. It’s a Matching Game that includes 24 pairs of faces of children from all over the world including a girl from Afghanistan and a boy from Iraq. We included these nationalities because we made this game at the beginning of the wars and we wanted to remind as many people as possible that there were children in those countries. We get letters from children and parents all the time telling us how much they love and appreciate seeing the different faces, and about how their children make up stories about which of the children are friends.
8. One of your new products is pipe cleaner craft kits for children, animal lovers, & crafty adults. Each of the 18 different designs are creatively named for the color family of pipe cleaners they contain, and each packet can be used to create a specific animal. If these animals could come to life, and you consider their relative pipe-cleaner size, which two animals would be have the most interesting (friendly) wrestling match? Who would win?
I prefer not to think about these fuzzy little animal fighting. The Yellow Bird is a wonderful shape and the Mushrooms are wonderful.
9. Finally… what are you currently obsessed with?
Current obsessions–gnarly mushrooms from farmers markets, pom poms, fancy knee socks, Georgian miniatures, hand spun and dyed wool, and making hats.
Next week, we’ll be posting an interview with the president & creative director of the toy company eeBoo. While you’re waiting, check out some of my favorite eeBoo stuffs.
I read E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Sandman for a class this year. It is a kind of disturbing and thrilling fairy tale that I had previously only known through Freud’s interpretation in The Uncanny. While reading it, I faintly recalled that this was the same man who authored The Nutcracker, which also always seemed disturbing, what with that seven-headed mouse and all.
So, I went in my xmas-book-archives and found the fabulous edition shown above. I am obsessed, and anyone who has come to my house in the past three weeks has been forced to look at it. It is a translation of the original text, not some dumbed-down and docile version “for children.” Not only that, but it is illustrated by Maurice Sendak, author of the children’s classic Where the Wild Things Are
Detailed illustrations occur throughout the text:
“She is overwhelmed with growing up and has no knowledge of what this means. I think the ballet is all about a strong emotional sense of something happening to her, which is bewildering.” — Maurice Sendak, NPR interview
There are also full-page illustrations, or, best of all, full-page spreads:
During the adventure to the magical capital, there are four beautiful full-page spreads in a row (oh, and a wild thing peeks his head out in one of them!):
Anyway, now that I’ve shown you all that, here’s the bad news: it’s out of print. Here’s the good news: it looks like there are still some old copies for sale on amazon.com in paperback and hardcover.
In my effort to see more “New York City things” before I leave NYC (sniff, sniff), I finally went up the beckoning steps of the New York Public Library.
“Where are the books?” my friend and I asked when we entered. It looked like a museum with all of its marble and stodgy portraits and professional exhibits (AND I did not know the Gutenburg Bible was there! I will have to go back!). Eventually, we found the books, as well as the secret reason I wanted to visit in the first place:
YES. That is the REAL, original Winnie-the-Pooh (aka Edward Bear) and his friends, Eeyore, Kanga, Piglet (now we know why he is so small!), and Tiger. These are the actual toys Christopher Robin Milne were given as a gift from his father, A.A. Milne. The only lost friend is Roo (in an Apple Orchard), since Rabbit and Owl were invented. They were apparently well-played with, both by Christopher and the family dog.
Of course, since I was IN the children’s section, I had to take a quick look around. It’s not the children’s book area of my dreams (or the library of my dreams), but it’s still pretty cool. The murals were superb, and after a million years of internet research, I discovered the artist is Susy Pilgrim Waters (whose style reminds me a lot of Miroslav Sasek — unless that’s just because they are drawings of New York). Tucked away into her web-site, I found an image of all the mural panels:
I happen to really like the Guggenheim (not always the art inside of it, but the shape, which I feel as if I should be allowed to rollerskate down):
Anyway, The New York Public Library (this is the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, which is on 42nd and 5th next to Bryant Park) is *free* and open to the public, and also a good set of steps to sit down and eat lunch on : ). Check the hours before taking a trip!
My mom was born in Denmark, and during her most recent trek back to the little country, I asked if she would bring me back a Danish ABC book.
She returned with Halfdan’s ABC book, a wonderfully illustrated — and from the meager amounts I can interpret — funny, ABC book written with slightly less… wholesome… humor than we feed our American kids.
In Book By Its Cover style (okay, well maybe not as cool), I present you with some of my favorite pages from the book.
Jump!
Yasmine, illustrator & owner of the blog A Print a Day (see previous post for more info), has, thus far, had an incredibly interesting life. Here’s the short version. (more…)
Since it’s Book Week here at S&D, the Donut of the Week is aptly book-related. There are actually multiple books about donuts, but I choose to highlight this 1970s children’s book, Who needs Donuts? by Mark Alan Stamaty, a cult classic among children and artsy adults. (More pictures etc after the jump.) (more…)
