Emiliana Torrini - Tookah

Earlier this year our phone rang and a strange accented Icelandic woman began to talk to me about how she loved our toys and how she loved playing with them with her child. She explained that she wanted to use PlayShapes on her album cover. Interested in this I asked her if I could hear some of her music. Yes you can and she started spelling her name E..m...i...l and then it all fell into place, we had been listening to Emilianas music for many years especially "Fisherman's wife", There was a special time before supper and bedtime that we used to regularly play it, We all used to love the calmness that it brought.
The new Album is called “Tookah” is a made-up word that carries the weight of multiple meanings and holds a revered significance to the musician. “It is the core of you. The ‘you’ when you were born before life decorated you like a Christmas tree with all your baggage. It is what connects us with everyone and everything,” she explained. “Some call it god. I call mine Tookah.” The album comes out in September, you can hear one of the songs here. Art direction - Age of reason, Photography - Capture Factory & Claire Pepper, Toys - MillerGoodman

Instant FaceMaker

Cool tutorial by Carl the talking piece of cardboard showing how its possible to create hundreds of faces. Viva le imagination. www.faceheads.ru

MillerGoodman @ Piet Hein Eek, Dutch Design Week 2012

When Piet Hein Eek called us up earlier this year to invite us to show in his Factory on the outskirts of Eindhoven nothing could prepare us for the scale of his operation.  His 10,000sq metre factory started out as a Philips manufacturing plant.  Town planners had decided to flatten it to develop a residential area but Piet managed to raise the finances to buy the site. After two years of incessant work Piet and his team have realised almost the impossible.  The site includes a showroom, gallery space restaurant, factory, shop, office space for his team and spaces for other artisans to rent. We were made to feel part of the family and are happy to be exhibiting there as part of Dutch Design Week. Pop along if you can. 20th-28th October

British Design Awards shortlist 2012

We are thrilled to have been shortlisted for this years British Design Awards for our block toy FaceMaker. We are amongst 30 other designers and brands. Take a look here at the shortlist British design awards and of course it would make us happy if you voted for us here.

Posted with Blogsy

Just Married

We have a bit of an announcement to make. We are now officially called the millergoodmans. We were married last Saturday after being together for 15 years and we are incredibly happy and grateful to all our friends and family for sharing an amazing day of love and laughter together. As a token of our love for each other and a celebration of giving we are for the next 2 weeks offering a 20% discount off everything in our shhhop if you enter the code 230612 (The date of our wedding) at checkout you will be eligable for the discount. This code will expire on Thursday the 12th of July at 10am. Please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
love David & Zoe

Telegraph Magazine

A nice review of our recent exhibition in Milan in the Sunday Telegraph's design special.
Text reads as follows. Best use of materials Miller Goodman is a design duo that specialises in products for children, from its PlayShapes made from colourful wooden blocks to a series of books made for Tate. Fun though these 'totems' may look, they are part of a series of art pieces that Zoe Miller and David Goodman made from salvaged materials and exhibited at Spazio Rossana Orlandi. The character and expression conveyed with offcuts of wood scraps of tin, old springs and bits of wood is extraordinary. (millergoodman.co.uk)

Showing at Rossana Orlandi Milan

Wow what an amazing space Rossana Orlandi has and what a treat to be in Milan for design week. We are showing alongside 40 other designers in this beautiful old tie factory.

The work we have done for the exhibition reveals the creative process behind our latest book ‘Faces’, showcasing some of the original pieces made for the book, along with new works. The exhibited sculptures combine re-appropriated objects and old toy parts. Some of the pieces have articulated moving parts, allowing them to be configured in different ways. Also featured is a totem pole made from 196 blocks of ShapeMaker.

FaceMakers have arrived!

Now available from us here and being sent out to our stockists. Explore your creativity and discover thousands of unique faces to be made with these 25 wooden blocks. Will you make the cowboy, the queen or a character only you can imagine? We hope you have fun playing! Please also remember to send in your creations so we can showcase them in our flickr group, link here.

Milton Glasser Video "Art is work"

'Artists give gifts to culture making us all feel connected.'   'Never lose your capacity for astonishment.' Beautiful man, beautiful mind, beautiful work.

Milton Glaser from Rui Amaral on Vimeo.

FaceMaker Product Launch @ Home London and Maison & Objet Paris

Thought we'd share this image of some of our new creations made with our new block toy FaceMaker. All these faces were made with one set. We are super excited to be taking trade orders at Home London 15-17th Jan and Maison & Objet Paris 20-24th Jan. We can't wait to see what faces everyone makes. Another cool thing is that ShapeMaker (our first block toy) and FaceMaker can be combined for even more possibilities.

Seasons Greetings

Sleepy man, Santa, and Angel created using our New toy FaceMaker available Feb 2012

The All New ShapeMaker Kindle ad!

You can see the ad here

OUR NEW BOOK FACES IS OUT

Welcome to our wonderful world of faces...

We are very proud to announce the launch of our new book for Tate Publishing called "Faces". Its been one of the hardest but most rewarding projects to date. Hence lack of blog posts

Book Description.

Faces are all around us, everywhere we look. On every page of this inspiring and imaginative book the reader will encounter unusual and creative ways of making faces, using printing, collage, geometric shapes and sculpture. Surprising details are revealed by lifting flaps, looking through holes or turning the book upside-down. As well as being entertaining and engaging, "Faces" offers an insight into major modern art movements, including pop art, op art, abstraction, junk art and kinetic sculpture. The book's designers reference key artists, including Alexander Calder, Joan Miro, and Eduardo Paolozzi as well as graphic designers of the 1950s and '60s. 

Available from our web shop link here or at Tate shops.

Illustration for View2 Magazine

we just created some more characters based on the moustache man for the fashion magazine View2 

The Genius of Ed Emberley

Ed Emberley has been a massive inspiration to us and millions of people over the years. Using just 6 basic shapes Ed shows us how to draw a world with animals, monsters, people vehicles and much much more. If only we had known about his books when we were kids. 

Christmas window SCP East

We just installed a Christmas window at SCP East, here are a few snaps. The lovely table and chair is by Sirch

PlayShapes receives a gold award from the US Parents Choice Foundation

We are very happy to have received a gold award from the 2010 Parents' Choice Awards for PlayShapes read more Here

A Wired Halloween

Thought we would post this illustration based on ShapeMaker we just completed for UK Wired magazine on Halloween.

TENT London

MillerGoodman is showing at TENT London again. We will be selling our products at special show prices, anyone in the area please come by and say hello.

The Genius of Alexander Calder

Thanks to Endless Magazine for reminding us how playful he was.