Yamaha conceptualizes toys for your feline friends

There used to be a time when most pet-oriented brands would design products mostly for puppies and dogs. But now that there are a lot of feline fur parents out there too, we’re seeing more brands get into the game of creating products that will appeal to this market. Even brands that usually don’t have anything to do with pets are also conceptualizing toys for cats.

Designers: Kazuya Washio (Yamaha Design Lab)

Yamaha is known more for their musical instruments and vehicles but now they’re exploring design studies for cat-related products while still keeping the design values of the company. What they came up with are three design concepts for things that felines might enjoy if they ever get made into actual products although there are no plans to commercialize it for now.

Neko-Yama is a cat playground but built in the “Yamaha style”. It lets the felines have a platform where they can explore all the tight spaces, crevices, and holes that they usually want to play around in. You will also be able to enjoy looking at them challenge themselves by playing around in the various places they can stick themselves in since it has a transparent design. The Strumming Box meanwhile is a scratching post where different colors will appear in the underside as they create their own patterns. Eventually it will look like a worn-out guitar but with the cat’s claws and scratches creating the unique surface.

Lastly, the Cat Music Box lets your feline friends create their own music by walking around in a wheel. Think of it as a hamster wheel but for cats and it is able to create notes through the rotation of the double wheels as it walks or runs around on the inner ring. The tempo also depends on how fast or slow they move. They can also walk backwards which might create a different kind of music.

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Ida Torres
Ida Torres is a writer at Yanko Design. She graduated with a degree in Film and Audio Visual Communication from the University of the Philippines and holds certificates in Digital Marketing Communications. She previously worked in the PR, advertising, and events industry and also taught communication subjects at the collegiate level. She has been writing for social media, books and publishing, pop culture, technology news, and design for the past 10 years.