About a father, for Father's Day

We love creating, so it’s only fair that you know how makedo was created! As a special treat for Father’s Day in Australia, here is an insider’s view on how this fantastic journey all began…

For many of us, makedo is a community; a way of looking at old and used objects and imagining new ones. It’s a playful means of creative communication and it’s synonymous with quality time. Makedo makes sense and it makes fun. Lots of it. “Why didn’t someone think of it sooner”, you muse. How was it finally conceived?

Enter young Ezra, a natural born maker and the eldest son of Claire and Paul Justin. Paul, known to his friends, family and colleagues as PJ, is an Industrial Designer with an incredible vision and an incredible family. With Ezra busy constructing whatever and wherever he could, PJ found that both he and his creative son were stuck in a rigid world of prescriptive toys that didn’t allow for deviations from the “correct” construction. Even using craft methods rendered objects useless after they were stuck or stapled together, leaving an exasperated father and a child who couldn’t exercise his creative genius.

So PJ went away with a design problem and returned with makedo, a way of using and reusing stuff that we have lying about; old and odd bits, or stuff we’re potentially throwing out, and making them into something new! First, they had a think about what they wanted to make. With the idea of a transformer firmly in mind, PJ and Ezra found objects around their house to construct said robot. When they finished with the robot, they transformed it to a car! All they had to do was think, and they could create it, being able to play with it immediately! Anything salvageable was snatched up to make way for a myriad of new ideas bursting with creativity and endless possibilities.

Sourcing all their creations from found objects around their home, both Ezra and PJ now see every milk carton as an opportunity, every cardboard box as precious resource for creativity, and every piece of scrap paper as a potential adornment, sign, crown, piece of foliage or yet-to-be-imagined fancy.

Some might call our PJ a brilliant Industrial Designer with a sound vision of the future, but we think he just might be the best Dad ever!

Enjoy the following clip as Ami walks us through the “I don’t know what to do box”, another brilliant PJ innovation, made using makedo of course…