Illustration from Bruno Munari’s Le Macchine di Munari, which also includes diagrams and helpful descriptions of a lizard-driven engine for tired tortoises, a mechanism for sniffing artificial flowers, a humiliator for mosquitoes, a machine for playing the pipe even when you are not home, a machine for seeing the dawn before anyone else, and a tail wagger for dogs.
Bruno Munari’s work was described by one critic as as “a playful revolution” – perfectly put. It is a rabbit hole to a realm where the tweaking of adult conventions and the stimulation of children’s imaginations meet, mingle, draw, type, play, and get wonderfully, absurdly, heartwarmingly weird. (A collection of his work can be viewed here, click on the “+” to reveal images.) Munari himself summed up his approach perfectly: lucidity, leanness, exactitude and humor. Compass points worth following, surely.