SMTH PLAYFUL

moving out

2010-03-07T21:43:00.003Z

Dear readers, I decided to move in with Amelie. You can follow me there, I will continue to post my projects and ideas in the same old way, it's just a new house.
thank you and see you there, Matteo

they make themselves pretty

2010-03-03T16:02:00.002Z

Monsters, animals, magic creatures, laptops and sweets are preparing themselves for my new project: it's the first collection under The Smths lab name (the studio started by me and Amelie Labarthe) and it will be presented on the 14th of April at Fuori Salone in Milan, Italy.
Smth's coming!

Finally!!

2010-02-24T17:47:00.004Z

Before publishing about my brand new stuff I was desperately waiting to finish my Maybeings, here the pics

walking

2010-01-21T20:14:00.003Z

After a hard work period ( creative, not physical ) I was feeling like my brain was empty, I decided to ask inspiration to the town so I had a walk through it with only my sketchbook. You can see what happened here , I just can say that it's still too cold to go out without a jacket..

my first videogame

2009-12-29T00:16:00.002Z

I remember it just now, it was Alex Kidd for sega master system II, I loved it so much

prototyping friends

2009-12-09T18:18:00.006Z

Waiting for receiving the plastic pieces I am working on the maybeings' legs. It's a mix between two electric wires (one for the diameter, the other inside as a reinforce), my nails scissors aren't good any more for nails but the effect is pretty good.

TARO

2009-12-07T00:42:00.004Z

I can't believe she made it for real!! It's my character and friend Taro, Amélie gave him birth in the real world! Usually I'm jealous of my creations but Taro almost prefers to stay with her...
Can't wait to hug him!
here is Amélie Labarthe's web site, she is a special soul and creative, half of the Smths

John Smth presents the Maybeings

2009-12-03T20:50:00.003Z

Finally the Maybeings project is finished. It will be on top on the smth page after the official Uclan presentation and the first working prototypes, they're comiiing!

smth to read

2009-11-13T19:06:00.004Z

I took some books from the library, never thought that the psychology sector could be so interesting ;)

the Maybeings

2009-11-09T19:28:00.006Z

A toy design project inspired by the concept of the "imaginary friend", a collection of fancy body parts to assembly in a free way in order to give the child the chance to make his own friend, it's a work in progress and part of a bigger family of products I'm thinking of... soon other news

My book!

2009-11-03T00:21:00.006Z

Finally it harrived to my home!!! It's Type Fontbatt published by Bnn. a japanese company. It's a book of fancy fonts, they selected 134 fonts on the web and made these very colourful pages, I am in with my ludiko village, it's a playful font of course, the letters are like little roofs, houses and factories to compose and build your own village.

DO IT

2009-10-26T15:02:00.002Z

A playful public design project for the city of Preston, developped in the multidisciplinar group d and showed to the Northern School Of Design last friday. The presentation pdf is downloadable here.

Tristan

2009-10-22T01:10:00.004+01:00

Finally I have my room in a real house, haaaaaaaaaa..... And I'm also proud of the keyring I bought for a pound near the university. Its name is Tristan, I suppose it's quite old because nobody bothers anymore to put iron soul in plastic toys. nice :)

what's this?

2009-10-09T16:19:00.002+01:00

finally the group d has a project for the preston brief!! Today i showed this concept to my collegues and they all proposed a lot of very interesting ideas to develop it. The project is about children of course, but it will require all our brains to grow.Heeeee, you would like to know what it is...

WHITE NIGHTS

2009-10-07T19:31:00.004+01:00

A young theater director in Italy asked me an image for his show, a representation of Dostoevskij's "White Nights". This is the first visualization I had today (I still wait an answer), I wanted to create a sad "northern" atmosphere, the vintage toys are from the amazing Preston city market.

So this is a blog...

2009-10-05T17:11:00.000+01:00

hello everybody, this is my new blog, here i will post drawings, projects, sketches, ideas and inspirations about toys and playful design, have fun.