Pages from the 1979 book "Kids' Stuff" by Linda Foa and Geri Brin. Besides "Children's Spaces" by Molly McGrath (later) this is our favorite book about kids' design. If you judged Kids' Stuff by its crazy cover you'd probably never open it, but inside it's like a kid's version of High Tech, the 70's industrial-style home design sourcebook, with hundreds brilliantly designed things, like chairs, tables, lamps, storage, drawer pulls, tents, ropes... all photographed either on seamless, on a Superstudio-esque grid, or in the cool NYC apartments of the authors and their friends. One of my favorites is the table from Scandinavian Design (above), used as a changing table, and "actually billed as a writing desk by the manufacturer". The book's acknowledgements mention a heavy thanks to designer Joe D'Urso and design author Barbara Plumb, and it shows. Also it's a sourcebook itself, so it tells you what everything is, how much it cost, and where it was available. Everything that is except the incidental decor in the kids' rooms, notably this girl's ball-bearing based, plastic sphere-encased, self-levelling desk lamp (below).
6 comments:
super duper radical hell yes kid stuff.
This is awesome. Must have child ASAP.
i grew up with that exact table being our drawing table as kids. my mom was getting rid of it the other day and i snatched it up. one side is covered with accidental + deliberate drawings but the other is like new (a marker side could be nice, but this one isn't). thinking of swapping it out for our dining table for awhile...:))
i grew up with that rolly art supply table. and when is saw your post the image stuck with me. my parents still have it. i emailed them and i am picking up the cutie next week. sweet. thanks for the reminder. :)
Sasha you're lucky- that's possibly my favorite table ever. I saw one in a garage sale last year and it was huge and more for work than drawing. It wasn't for sale so I guess I'm going to have to make my own. It's such a great concept.
Bianca that's a Boby cart by Joe Colombo. You now need to use it for your grown up art! Or use it as the terrarium organizer- since you probably don't want to get paint on it once you see what a replacement costs.!
Wow, on the table there's a 8101 lamp by Rafael Carreras Puigdengolas for Tramo, Barcelona - Spain. First time I see one of these on the web out of the Barcelona Decorative Arts Museum webpage. Almost impossible to find in real life... Not too safe for a children's table, though.
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