I just found a blog post about “Toronto’s Best Baby Stores” on blog T.O. . The post is from summer 2009 (I guess better late than never :-) ). Many of the stores sell our wooden building blocks. It feels great to be part of it all.
Hello,
Our blocks were on TV last night as part of CHCH news in Hamilton. Unfortunately there was no mention of us, but footage of kids playing with them. Gosh, I really need my branding iron to come in :-) Maybe I can even track down some video online about it.
Cheers, Hans
I visited the Socially Responsible Design Exhibit at the Toronto International Airport yesterday. It was great seeing what others are doing, some great ideas and some really neat other products that are manufactured in Canada.
A huge thank you to Lee, who is the curator for the art at the airport. She does a great job and is very passionate about representing Canada at the airport is great. “It is often the first and last impression of Canada for travellers.”
She also told me that Treehugger reported on the show and that our blocks are featured in their article. Thank You Treehugger.
(click on image to see the blog post at treehugger.com)
Hi everyeone,
I’m about to enter our building blocks into a design competition about ethical and socially responsible product design. I’m not a very talented writer and would love to get your opinion on the following text I wrote. Please don’t hold back on any criticism, it’s the only way that I can improve and I will not take it personal… (maybe just a tiny bit, but that’s my problem :-)
So here it is. Let me know what you think:
Wooden Building Blocks by Ukoonto
Safe for Your Child, Good for the Planet
This toy is focused around the well being of our children, the environment, and local economy.
These simple heirloom style toys foster a healthy life style. Similar to the slow food movement, we want to encourage “slow play”, which means taking time off to really connect with our children, stimulating their little brains with the natural touch of wood, helping develop gross and fine motor skills through play away from the busyness of our current life styles.
Ukoonto, which is run by Hans Eich, makes these building blocks from 100% recycled (post industrial) maple wood with energy from renewable sources (Bullfrog Powered) right here in Canada (Niagara Region) since 2008. No toxins are being used during the production of these toys. The quality of these blocks usually means that this toy will be handed on to the next generation, but in case it is discarded, these building blocks will completely decompose naturally.
Choosing our toys means:
-    Caring about your Childs well being
-    Supporting local economy
-    Supporting clean energy
-    helping to keep this wood to go to waste
In case you are wondering what competition this is for, here’s the link to it
Hi everyone,
just a brief note. The online store at http://ukoonto.myshopify.com/ seems to work now. I just did a test run and everything works. Shopify has a really nice interface and makes it very easy to manage the store. I hope I can concentrate on all welcoming all of our visitors now :-)
More news from the Ukoonto camp really soon. Look out for a big suprise tomorrow.
Cheers, Hans
Today I’m working on the packaging. I’ve been contacting a lot of companies that make great packaging. One thing is clear, I would like to keep the footprint caused by packaging as small as possible. Really not easy, considering that it takes so much to create packaging, that is just going to be thrown out in the end.
One way of making the packaging relevant was to put the blocks into cloth bags. I really like it, but it adds to much cost the product and doesn’t seem to add enough value for the Ukunto fans. I’m still thinking how I can create packaging that is the shipping box and the product packaging in one. At least, this way you reduce the use of one box.
Have you come across any really cool innovative designs? Please let me know, I’d love to see it.
Cheers, Hans
Today I was working on creating advertisement panels for the smart. Phase one is done. I will closely monitor how people respond to it. Let’s see if the number of people visiting ukunto.com goes up. I purposefully did not write what ukunto is on the car just yet. I think people will be much more curious this way and it might turn people away right away if they know what ukunto is :-) So for now, this is what the smart looks like now:
