In 1966, the year Patrick Rylands graduated from the Royal College of Art, the British toy industry was being conquered by a soldier. Action Man, complete with a macho painted-on scar and fatigues, won the battle for Toy of the Year.
But for Rylands, who has died aged 83 after suffering from vascular dementia, the future of children’s play was not to be found in camouflage or tiny guns, but in the translucent, jewel-toned geometry and simplicity of his first toy design, PlayPlax. A quiet revolution of simple interlocking squares – designed while he was still at college – it offered a defiant modernist “less” response to the toy world’s “more is more” approach.
