The Toy Box - The Changing Semiotics of Toy Packaging
- Submitting institution
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University of Northampton, The
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 4563441
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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- Book title
- Semiotics and Visual Communication II : Culture of Seduction
- Publisher
- Cambridge Scholars Publishing
- ISBN
- 9781527500020
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- October
- Year of publication
- 2017
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Semiotics and Visual Communications II brought together peer-reviewed research into the meaning and communication of things that seduce the onlooker. The Toy Box chapter looks at the changing semiotics of toy packaging and its customer appeal. It draws on a historical study and a continuing debate about what is a good toy. What should be give to our children to play with? It starts with a classic Roland Barthes’ 1957 article. His analysis is in line with twentieth century educational theorists. Wooden toys were the ideal, and preferably without imagery, so that children’s imagination would be free to play and create their own stories. Theorists and parents all have an opinion based in their own childhood experience and expectations for the next generation. Toys are products that carry personal meaning and are often bought by others. In the later half of the 20th century, new technologies, media, retailing and materials changed some of these meanings. Plastics, licensing, television and digital technologies changed how toys were designed, marketed and consumed. The primary interview research was with designers and manufactures designing good toys for firms like Galt, innovative designs like the space hopper and involved with the production of licensed toys. Today, debate has moved to questioning the gendering of toys, the use of tablets, and most recently the negative environmental effect of plastic toys and packaging. Play and toy production is global. Ideas about creative play and good toys are being taken up in emerging economies like China. The Toy Box chapter provides the context for the key decisions that global toy firms have made. It is a significant study for anyone trying to create a toy for the child, that communicates the right good toy message to three different generations, who are all key consumers.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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