Toymaker: The Autobiography Of The Man Whose Designs Shaped Our Childhoods
- Pre-Order
Author: Tom Karen

Published by: Blink Publishing
£7.99 ~~RRP£9.99~~
- This item is available to pre-order.
  
  Due for release: 29 Apr 2024.
  We expect to receive the item from our suppliers on or around this date.
  
  Store prices may vary
  
  Return Policy
Embed

Copy and paste the following code where you want the embed to appear.

If you're an affiliate make sure your code is set in the “Affiliate” section.

Embed code

Affiliates

If you are an affiliate you can add your code to the share link by entering it here

Affiliate code

Product Description

Step inside his home and you’ll see papier-mache birds, a life-sized cardboard tiger, model cars; his work bench a vibrant collage of creativity, from hand-drawn maps and postcards to newly devised toys for his beloved grandchildren.

Tom Karen is a toymaker, creative genius, award-winning designer and one of the world’s most remarkable inventors. From inventing the Marble Run to designing the iconic Raleigh Chopper bike and creating the Bond Bug, Tom’s designs are cherished the world over, but behind these fantastical creations lies an equally remarkable life.

Born in the 1920s into a wealthy family and raised in Czechoslovakia by nannies, Tom had a lonely upbringing and longed for pencils, paper, paints and brushes. His childhood was short-lived when Tom and his family had to flee for their lives following the rise of Nazi Germany. It was this formative experience that would transform Tom’s life. Arriving in the UK, Tom would establish himself as a creator slowly building the career that would see him dubbed ‘the man who designed the seventies’.

Told through the prism of Tom’s incredible designs, Toymaker is a story about life, about imagination, about being in the present and existing in the past; about painting, drawing, chopping and changing; about thinking, discussing, arguing and listening. Tom’s life is a tale of a century of creativity and how ‘things’ come to define who we are - and help us look ahead to where we’re going.