kids

“Twenty years on, the Force is still with us and there’s still so much more to come,” said LEGO’s Jens Kronvold Frederiksen.

Worlds Apart’s head of R&D and product design, James Austin-Smith, looks at the revolution that’s changing mainstream toy design (for the better).

Categories include R&D Team of the Year, Design Agency of the Year and Toy Designer of the Year.

“We’re creating a new type of play where the physical world actually influences the AR layer, instead of the other way around,” said LEGO’s Tom Donaldson.

“Gen Speak – children using a smart speaker to call up content, answer a homework question or order a new pair of trainers with their own pre-paid credit card – is rapidly becoming the new normal in many homes, and we see this trend continuing,” said Kids Insights’ Nick Richardson.

New report also shows that playtime is being squeezed, with nearly a third of families spending less than five hours playing together every week.

A conversation about coding toy Cubetto leads MURO founder Jeremy Bond to consider how great toys make adults more playful, as well as their kids.