ASOBI: Children’s Toy Design in Every Language

Jeffrey Gibbs ’26 MFA (industrial design) created an open-ended building system that allows children to decide how they play. The children's toy design was for Gibbs' thesis research project.

The children’s toy design problem

Many of today's toys are built around a single story or a media franchise. They steer children down one path, lose their appeal quickly, and end up adding to the pile of toys at home.

The children’s toy design solution

ASOBI is an open-ended construction system of connectors, beams, and joints that empowers children to set the scope of play themselves, from towers and structures to letters and whole worlds. The children's toy design draws on Montessori and Waldorf principles and on the "IKEA effect," the idea that we value what we help make. The aim is a toy that holds a child's interest longer and earns a longer life in the home.

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Photo by Elizabeth Lamark

This large build shows the full range of part available with "ASOBI."

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Photo by Elizabeth Lamark

"ASOBI" provides an open-ended prompt to keep kids busy playing for a longer period.

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Photo by Elizabeth Lamark

The "ASOBI" children's toy design packaging, also designed by Jeffrey Gibbs as part of the RIT industrial design MFA program's thesis project.