Djeco is a family business, started in 1954 by the Mother Véronique Michel-Dalès and now run by her son, Frédéric. Their vision is to design toys that are not on the market, they use artists to illustrate and design each Djeco Toy. All that work there are involved with design, coming up with ideas of wooden toys, new Djeco puzzles, playing cards and their ideas are made into reality. For example, the Djeco Smoothie Playing Card Game was an idea from one of their children.
This approach goes a long to way to explain why Djeco is so popular with children, parents and Grand-Parents alike. Their innovative toys and arts & crafts kits are what children and parents want. They are also beautifully designed and housed in storage boxes that not only are useful but look beautiful on shelves in bedrooms.
We saw many of our favourite illustrations hung on the walls in their offices, they are works of art in themselves never mind just a good Djeco puzzle picture!
Djeco do not cut corners when it comes to the packaging, the silhouette puzzles are a great example of this, with boxes that are shaped like trees, carriages and fairies. Often imitated but never the same.
After the tour of the offices and meeting everyone, we went to the new warehouse just outside of Paris. Extremely efficient and very impressive – even with a little wrapping robot to ensure our orders come to the UK all in perfect condition.
Then the afternoon was spent seeing all the new Djeco Toys. Our children had a go at some of the puzzles, games and arts and crafts and we came away with a long list of new lines that will be arriving from now until September so keep an eye out!
Our favourite Djeco toys of the day:
Sam – Djeco Cubissimo, Me - Djeco Vis 'n Roll, Amelie - Alice in Wonderland Djeco Puzzle