Baby's First Design Lesson

You might remember that my son was born in May, and that I'm attempting his design indoctrination early.

(By the way, his name is Oliver Lincoln, an name that easily passed the Google test when I learned about Oliver Lincoln Lundquist, an industrial designer and architect!)

Just thought I'd share a(n admittedly fluffy) post of some of the architecture- and design-related books and toys he already loves (or will love, when he's a little older than 12 weeks!). I also won't be using affiliate links in this post- it's just for fun.

Baby's First Eames was a shower gift from one of my sweet co-workers, and it was the first book Oli sat all the way through, happily. He seemed to love the colors, and I loved brushing up on my design history!

By the way, Knoll makes a kid-sized version of the iconic Barcelona chair on the page above; I happened across it when looking for a kid-sized Eames lounge chair for Oli's room. No luck there, but they do have the Saarinen tables for kids too! (The Womb chair may end up being what we use in place of the Eames in his room- we're wanting a Montessori-lite space for him for design reasons I wrote about here).

In short, appropriately sized furniture is important to me when designing a kid's area, and Serena and Lily also has scaled-down versions of their bistro furniture (you might remember the look from this post on iconic chairs) for kids' spaces and they're pretty adorable!

Another Montessori-ish principle we're trying to follow in Oli's room is open-ended toys to foster creativity and independence, so I like that Serena and Lily has styled the table with those (really pretty) blocks! Selfishly, I also am biased toward toys that are pleasant for adults to look at, because I know they'll end up all over the house, so I've heard these Grimm's blocks meet the fun, open-ended, and pretty criteria well.

I also like that they're architectural, different from most block sets. They're stackable, but also can be used for other types of pretend play. The Blockitechture blocks are a similar concept, but a little more realistic than Grimms' village.

Mobiles are another common element in Montessori baby spaces, and I like this Drifting Clouds one from the MOMA store because it's high contrast- great for new baby eyes!- and because it reminds me of a Calder sculpture. (Calder also has his own page in Baby's First Eames).

Some other high-contrast favorites of Oli's have been the Wee Gallery art cards (we love using them during tummy time) and Art for Babies, which is a great size to prop up for him to look at when he just wants to hang out.

Coincidentally, his favorite page is the Damien Hirst, so the colorful one hanging in our office reminds me of my kid every time I head to the water cooler!

The Pantone book is another favorite of his that's easy to prop up, but I think he'll enjoy it even more when he's actually old enough to learn colors.

The Joan Miro coloring book is another one he's not quite old enough to appreciate, but we'll keep it in mind for when he is!

Hope you enjoyed the round-up; let me know if you'd like to see another one as Oli ages into even more designer-friendly toys!