risd!kids store downtown.
risd!kids latest downtown merchandising venture
There’s a new Rhode Island School of Design store where customers
are covering their faces with fruit-flavored paints, learning how to mummify
Barbie dolls with household items and building the Eiffel Tower out of matchsticks.
The store’s target audience isn’t RISD students, but even younger
artists.
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Risd!kids, the latest retail venture by the Rhode Island School
of Design, has its eye on 5-year-olds and up. The store – which opened last
month – is designed to make young people feel comfortable and creative while
learning about art and design.
Located inside the Rhode Island School of Design’s RISD store, risd!kids follows
the school’s successful 2001 opening of risd|works, which showcases and sells
art and other items from RISD alumni and faculty. The store grew out of RISD
President Roger Mandle’s vision for RISD to expand into the retail arena.
“As a place in Providence, what we really wanted to have was a role (where)
people touring Providence, who might know of RISD (but not of its disciplines)
to have a constellation of stores where if you cruise through them, you see
these are RISD’s core values,” said Liz O’Neil, the store’s creator and director
of RISD’s Design Marketing Collaborative. “Our goal is to make those principles
tangible and really understood.
“We wanted to have it (have) some classics, things you don’t find at K-B Toys
or Toys ‘R’ Us, but that really stimulate the thought process,” said O’Neil.
“We are an educational institution, so fundamentally, all of our retail operations
are meant to serve a thought-provoking and educational purpose.”
The boutique-style children’s store sells toys, books, art and design supplies
and gifts that appeal to children and spark their creativity and curiosity,
while teaching them about art.
“We already had a huge community of 5-and-up students here,” through the Young
Artist Program, the museum education program and the Masters in Art Education
curriculum, “as well as people on campus really focusing on arts as education.
We thought it was appropriate to address that market,” said Matthew Bird, risd|works
associate director.
“They are art supplies but they’re kids’ toys, too.”
Bird and O’Neil hand-selected all of the art supplies and toys with the idea
that each toy be utilized on more than one level, and when the supplies were
used up, the toy or remaining pieces of the kit could be refilled or used for
another purpose.
“We were careful to make sure that the kits aren’t dead when you use up the
stuff (inside them),” Bird said. “And we didn’t want how-to books and toys.
We wanted objects that inspire creative thinking.”
“If it’s just playfulness, then it’s not consistent with our overall educational
mission,” O’Neil said. “They’re hands-on and engaging but not with a prescribed
outcome.”
Bird and O’Neil said they had a set of criteria with which to choose the products
for the store.
“We obviously chose art supplies that are better suited for kids, like the
water-soluble pencils, but we also chose activity-based items,” like a set of
markers with plastic connectors so that children can make shapes by snapping
the markers together; or a paper-making kit that comes with a wooden box to
refill or use as storage, Bird said.
Some of the toys are classics as far as toys go: whirligigs with assorted
optical illusions; mini-sets of pickup sticks; Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, Legos,
Color Forms and metal-erector sets. There is also a good mix of new toys, supplies
and products, which O’Neil and Bird have tested out personally.
There are Lego-like block sets that assemble to make different marble runs;
colorful plastic bug parts that build upon the Mr. Potato Head idea; different
colored block sets for 3-D thinking and coordination; and silk scarf printing
kits.
For RISD, opening a children’s toy and art supply store was a natural progression
and something it had been offering to the RISD community, but wanted to supply
to the public.
The store is also a way to educate young people on the different disciplines
in art, specifically the ones RISD offers, Bird said. Fields like textiles,
industrial manufacturing, graphic design, architecture and sculpture are all
represented in risd!kids with toys and art supplies. Prices vary at risd!kids,
from a 99-cent mini paint set to $120 for an original Merkur metal construction
set.
“They’re craft projects but they have a bigger focus,” Bird said. The book
that teaches a child how to mummify Barbie also includes facts about how real
mummies were prepared. All of the toys and supplies in the store are for ages
5 to adult.
“We’re building on a model that we started with risd|works … where we try
to communicate the breadth of what the RISD disciplines are,” O’Neil said.
The store aims to be a place where children want to learn about art, and where
parents and even students can get a shopping experience that is different from
shopping in K-B Toys or another chain or mall.
“People have gotten fed up with the idea that every mall is the same,” Bird
said. “The individuality is missing, I think. This is a great place to shop
for the kid who has expressed an interest in art, but even more for the child
who hasn’t.”
