P04–2022. KAIA'S CARDS

The born of Kaia, CRSL’s founder and creative director daughter, has been the joyful input that led to the creation of this project. While doing some prenatal research about newborns and infancy, Enrico and his wife Milan discovered that babies enjoy looking at simple, high-contrast images. In the first weeks, even months, newborns have a very undeveloped sense of sight. This is why they like flat, bold, black and white shapes: their simplicity allows babies to actually focus on them properly. These kind of images stimulate the development of the optic nerves and encourage young babies cognitive development without over-stimulating them.

As a team of designers, what better way there could be to welcome Kaia than designing her own set of high-contrast cards? So we did. We drawn thirty-six black and white illustrations and screen-printed them as a 70×100 cm, 1 mm thick, poster. The poster can be simply hung on the wall or be hand-cut to obtain the 36 cards deck. We loved working on this, so we extended the project to furnish Kaia’s room, creating five smaller posters and a cotton blanket.

Screenprint by Veryseri Lab.
Posters by Tipografie Reali.

The 36 cards are divided into six themes: movement, rhythm, geometry, stripes, optical and objects. We added this layer of complexity to keep Kaia's interested in the cards as she grows up, and to teach deeper concepts stimulating the child's curiosity.
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SIMPLE TO COMPLEX
We kept most of the cards as simple as possible. For some of them we pushed a but further, so that hopefully the game could be interesting also when Kaia is one or even two years old.
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FOR GROWN UPS TOO
We felt parents could enjoy the cards as well. So we arranged the illustrations in five compositions and created a set of poster.
Beyond the cards and the posters, the project features a light cotton blanket to be used in the cradle or the stroller.