On our search for fun, artistic and inspirational apps for little children we stumbled across a new design gem called this monster: creatures that love color. Developed and designed by former MoMA graphic designer and art director Julianna Goodman it is all about colour, texture and creativity.

The app consists of three different activities: (1) colour eater is a monster that wants to be fed with colours, all in form of a rhyming interactive tale. (2) monster pretend! introduces quirky characters like a jumping jackelope, a musical mermaid and a polka dot painter. (3) monster get dressed! asks players to choose a monster and dress it up to take a shareable foto at the end.

What makes this monster: creatures that love color really special is the emphasis on the handmade. It incorporates all kinds of „visual textures“ like paper, felt, cloth facbric, puff balls and feathers which add a layer of a new, hybrid, digital-textile experience. That makes it easy to relate to for kids. And will hopefully inspire children and parents to continue playing the game in real life with real stuff!

By the way: Julianna Goodman took a fun tradition from the videogame world and transferred it to the app, that is hiding a few “easter eggs” into the interactions. For example if the player moves a certain object on the page, a fish flies out of the water or a dog will bark when a particular dot oft he Polka dot painters is touched. Goodman herself calls these “unexpected rewards.”

What we like:
+ charming, handcrafted and textured design
+ rich illustrations consisting of collages, water colors, doodles, fabrics
+ unusual, quirky characters
+ original music and endearing sound effects
+ bonus: funny, unexpected, little surprises

The app is available only for iPad on the App Store. Explore the cute video demo: