Saturday, June 9th, 2012
Chico Bicalho choreographed to the music of Brazil – 12 short videos of his wind-up toy designs, including an original score composed by the father of Bossa Nova, Roberto Menescal for Bonga Climbing Worm.
Critter: Full orchestra Samba School (escola de samba as in carnival)
Spinney: Samba Tamborim (Not a tambourine, but a 6” diameter drum played with a drumstick)
Katita: Forró (A Northeastern dance very popular throughout Brazil now)
Cranky: Samba rhythm with Pandeiro (The instrument known as tambourine in the US)
Sparklz: Samba rhythm with Frigideira (samba played with a frying pan)
Bonga: Bossa Nova (composed especially for Kikkerland by Roberto Menescal)
ZéCar: Samba with Pandeiro and Tamborim
Awika!: Samba rhythm with Reco-Reco (a metal scraping instrument)
Oahaca: Samba rhythm 2nd predominance to Tamborim and Cuíca (please look up cuíca; too complex to describe)
Pintacuda: Axé Music (Afro-Brazilian rhythm from Bahia, Brazil)
Le Pinch: Maculelê (Afro-Brazilian martial arts rhythm similar to Capoeira, but fought with two sticks)
MxyKikker: Capoeira (Afro-Brazilian martial arts rhythm play)
Thursday, March 1st, 2012
Meet our partner in the Czech Republic, Dezyned founded by Miroslav ‘Miro’ Peraica. Miro has been a bookstore owner in Prague for over a decade, running three of the city’s English language bookshops. His interest in literature led him to become involved in many cultural projects including organizing film festivals, hosting lectures, and editing literary magazines.
Miro was introduced to Kikkerland in Belgrade when a friend had a one of Chico Bicalho’s Wind-up Critters. He was convinced the wind-ups would bring joy to his customers and started buying them from our Serbian distributor. After discovering all the fun products Kikkerland had, Miro was inspired to become a distributor bringing smiles and inspiration to central Europe.
Here is the Dezyned website http://www.dezyned.cz/ and Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kikkerland-Design-Praha/162033137193659
Monday, April 25th, 2011
Jan van der Lande interviewed by Core77 at the Chicago Housewares Show
“Kikkerland is a company that designs, creates, and markets fun and functional products. In order to do that, we need good ideas. …even if it’s a bad idea, we always give it good consideration. …we know that designers are the ones that have the best ideas. Sometimes, we take an idea, and help the designer change it a little bit so that it’s marketable. It’s important for the designers that they should go out in the market a little bit more and go to trade shows like this, so that they can see what’s on the market, what’s hot, what’s working well. The people who do that usually score best in their designs.”
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
posted by graphic designer ellen zhou of BURO-GDS on blog.buro-gds.com.
“Kikkerland Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier. Imagine a whole series of these architectural toys mixing buildings with “creatures” by Chico Bicalho!”
We do Ellen, we do!
Download postcard here:
http://buro-gds.com/halfbaked-pdf/090502-kikkersavoye.pdf
