The first kits were assembled at home.

Creativity for Kids started under another name. A history timeline published by Faber-Castell USA, the brand’s owner, says the company was founded in 1976 as Creative Art Activities, Inc. by Phyllis Brody and Evelyn Greenwald, who wanted to give children creative experiences. The timeline says the first products were assembled in the founders’ own homes in 1977, and it names two of them: feather duster bags and a product called “Super Paint.”

The early range was packaged in an unusual material. Faber-Castell’s timeline says that in 1978 the company showed a set of burlap bags — Wood, Fabric and Puppet Art Bags — at the American International Toy Fair in New York. Each bag held the materials for one kind of project, the same idea that later moved into printed boxes.

The name arrived a few years later. The timeline says the business adopted the name Creativity for Kids in 1980, when it moved to a larger space and its line ran to twelve products, and that national mail-order catalogues were listing the kits by 1981. In 1987, it says, the company moved to East 23rd Street in downtown Cleveland, launched a Gross and Yucky Monster kit and expanded its “Let’s Pretend” dress-up range, with museum shops among its customers. By 1981, the timeline says, a sales representative group was covering the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic for the company.

A new logo, then a yellow band.

The visual identity was built up in steps that the company itself has dated. Faber-Castell’s timeline says Creativity for Kids introduced a new logo in 1988. In 1992, it says, the company moved to Central Avenue in Cleveland and added a yellow band to its packaging. In 1993 the timeline records that graphic design was brought in-house and that a new packaging style was introduced, so the boxes were designed by the company’s own staff from that point.

The range widened through the 1990s. The timeline lists a science series and a mission statement in 1991, a Disney licence in 1994, a “Learning by Doing” library series in 1995, and a “Make Your Own” series of Smackers lip-balm kits developed with Bonne Bell in 1998. After the change of ownership it lists Madeline and Dr. Seuss licences in 2002, Shrinky Dinks activity sets and a Designed By You Fashion Studio in 2007, and a line for younger children called Creativity for Little Kids in 2008. Later entries name Create Your Own Pop-Up Books and Coloring & ARTivity Books in 2009, Wind-Up Workshop Robots in 2010, a Grow N’ Glow Terrarium in 2014 and a set of twelve new holiday kits in 2018.

Many of the kit names describe the finished object rather than the craft technique. The timeline lists early titles such as Jazzy Daffy Caps and a Let’s Pretend Fairy Princess set in 1991, a Ballerina Jewelry Box and Amigo Bands in 1995, Magnetivity kits in 1999, ceramic painting and room décor kits in 2002, and a Butterfly Bedroom kit in 2003. In 2011, it says, a Make Your Own Kaleidoscope kit was featured on NBC’s Today show.

On where the kits are made, the company’s timeline is brief: it records partnerships with Asian manufacturers in 2005. In 2003, it says, Jamie Gallagher became chief executive and the company moved into a facility in Valley View, Ohio, outside Cleveland.

Design and documentation.

Craft and science-kit brands sit at an unusual point in the toy trade. A single box may hold paper, paint and glue, or wires, magnets and a set of printed instructions, and the brand on the lid often belongs to a company that also makes books, art supplies or other toys, or that has been bought by a larger publisher or toy group along the way.

Because so much of the product is the instructions, a kit brand’s identity tends to live in its packaging, its project books and the way its parts fit together, rather than in a single object. The same name can appear in a toy shop, a bookshop, a museum shop and a classroom, and the company behind it may have changed hands or moved where its kits are made and packed.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — who started it, who owns it now, where its kits are made and how its range has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Part of Faber-Castell since 1999.

The company’s most important change of ownership came in its fourth decade. Faber-Castell’s timeline says Creativity for Kids was acquired by Faber-Castell in 1999, and that Cleveland became the US headquarters of Faber-Castell USA as a result. The German pencil maker, whose own identity is covered in our Faber-Castell brand guidelines, has owned the brand since then and has kept the Creativity for Kids name on its kits.

The two names have been paired ever since. The timeline says the US launch of Faber-Castell Premium Children’s Art Products followed in 2000, and that in 2001 Creativity for Kids expanded into Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Hong Kong and Latin and Central America. In 2011, it says, the brand marked its 35th anniversary in the same year Faber-Castell marked its 250th. The timeline also records the first International Creativity Pow Wow and a first global sales meeting in 2000, the year after the purchase.

The founders handed over in stages. The timeline records that Evelyn Greenwald retired in 2004, and that Phyllis Brody retired in 2021, the year the brand marked its 45th anniversary. In between, it says, Creativity for Kids marked its 20th anniversary in 1996 and celebrated its 40th year at the New York Toy Fair in 2016, with an appearance by the television baker known as the Cake Boss.

For a design guide, Creativity for Kids shows how a kit brand can grow out of a few bags of materials into a packaged range with a fixed colour cue, here a yellow band added in 1992. Compare its parent in our Faber-Castell brand guidelines and a fellow kit-and-book maker in our Klutz brand guidelines. For this guide we use teal, band yellow and berry with a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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