Cas Holman
Award-Winning Toy Designer of the World-Renowned Rigamajig | Author, Playful | Founder and Principal Designer at Toy Company Heroes Will RiseCas Holman is the founder and principal designer at Heroes Will Rise: an award-winning independent toy company producing innovative toys that are designed for creativity and open-ended play. For two decades, she’s been designing playthings like the well-known Rigamajig—used around the world—and interactive play spaces that encourage children and adults alike to explore, imagine, and collaborate. When we play together, we learn to take responsibility for our own ideas and our happiness, and we learn to trust and work with others. Cas teaches us that when we take a playful approach to all aspects of life, we encounter unexpected possibilities and a deepening of our important relationships with our teammates and colleagues. When we play together, we come to understand each other.
Cas was featured in the award-winning Netflix series Abstract: The Art of Design. Her motto? Easy is boring. She motivates us to notice the world around us, adopting a mindset of curiosity in everything we do. Her philosophy places play at the forefront of the design process, and she makes toys for kids to feel empowered and understood.
Her highly acclaimed new book, Playful: How Play Shifts Our Thinking, Inspires Connection, and Sparks Creativity is a call for us all to add more play into our lives—and watch how it makes us more innovative, less stressed, and more fulfilled. In it, she draws on the science of play, psychology, design thinking, and more to make the case for unstructured play time, and to show us how to leverage play to find more meaning in every sphere of our lives.
As a consultant, Cas has worked with the leadership and design teams at Nike, Ford, Disney Imagineering, and MIT. She teaches the world’s biggest companies to integrate the benefits of play, open-ended processes, and new ways of thinking into their ethos. Cas also designs indoor and outdoor play spaces for schools, public parks, and museums, including the recently opened Wobbly World at Liberty Science Center, New Jersey. As an educator of twelve years and a former associate professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, she’s dedicated her life to challenging conventional ideas about how we learn, and what types of learning have value. She’s collaborated with thought leaders in design, early education, and play advocacy who share her passion for reimagining our systems for learning and play.
Cas designed a “prototyping play” exhibition at the Queens Museum in 2023, and created teaching tools for the Walker Art Center for 2024 and beyond. She was featured in a retrospective exhibition about play called the Object/s of Play: The Work of Cas Holman and Karen Hewitt at Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, VT.
K01 – Welcome + Opening Keynote: The Power of Play How We Can Use Imagination and Curiosity to Change the World
If we want to create, innovate, and collaborate in fresh ways, we need to tap into the power of play—which is for everyone, not just for kids. In this…If we want to create, innovate, and collaborate in fresh ways, we need to tap into the power of play—which is for everyone, not just for kids. In this talk, award-winning toy designer and educator Cas Holman illustrates how play is a fundamental elem…If we want to create, innovate, and collaborate in fresh ways, we need to tap into the power of play—which is for everyone, not just for kids. In this talk, award-winning toy designer and educator Cas Holman illustrates how play is a fundamental element of creativity. Using examples from her own design work and decades of observing and facilitating play, she explains how play inspires unexpected outcomes and allows for new discoveries that might …If we want to create, innovate, and collaborate in fresh ways, we need to tap into the power of play—which is for everyone, not just for kids. In this talk, award-winning toy designer and educator Cas Holman illustrates how play is a fundamental element of creativity. Using examples from her own design work and decades of observing and facilitating play, she explains how play inspires unexpected outcomes and allows for new discoveries that might otherwise be unreachable or seem impossible. Her approach has helped teams reframe their understanding of their goals and create new approaches and processes to evaluate and achieve them. She’s already brought her workshops to the likes of Nike, Ford, and Disney Imagineering, helping them integrate the benefits of play into their work. A keen observer of human behavior, Cas’s insights make her a go-to for teams looking to energize their process and reframe corporate habits. All badge types are welcome.Show MoreClick the title to see all detailsShow More
