A joint program of the British Toy and Hobby Association and the Trading Standards Institute, Playsafe is a youth toy and game design competition focused on safety. While products submitted may be educational and should certainly be fun and unique, safety features, including warnings, usage instructions, conformity symbols, and component specifications, will be a major factor in the selection of winners.

The deadline for entry is 15 June 2014. Cash prizes will be awarded to the winners in various categories, as well as to the winners’ schools.

[via Toy World]

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Two new art and design exhibits open Thursday at the World Chess Hall of Fame in St. Louis.

In the first exhibit, Strategy by Design, are board games from the Michael Graves Design Group. Along with additional pieces to provide historical context are Graves-designed versions of Scrabble, Monopoly, Yahtzee, and Backgammon.

The second, Pieces and Performances, pairs the works of John Cage and Glenn Kaino. From Cage is the Chess board he rigged to play different musical pieces depending on the space to which a piece was moved. The board was originally used by the artist and Marcel Duchamp for a public performance in 1968. From Kaino are an 80 inch square Chess board and images of a 2007 Chess tournament in which the pieces were lit candles (thus featuring a built-in time-limit).

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