Do kids like and play with these toys?  

My son would love it. He love...
My son would love it. He loves airplanes, tractors, trucks et al. He's 2.

And if for a kid that young, ...
And if for a kid that young, make sure they can hold it easily. They like small toys.

Why are
you hating on that cute red plane? I think it's precious!

Cos I'm a hater, hate hate...
Cos I'm a hater, hate hate hate.
No, I like it and think its cute too but wonder about the stark look of some of these toys, are they for the kids or the parents?
Or even worse for the designer?

This is a perfectly good toy.
I would very much like to see a return to simple, yet functional toys for kids. Some of them do still exist and are still popular. The sensory overload of the majority of today's toys, television, food products, etc. is not healthy for kids (or adults for that matter).

.
I agree on that for sure, don't think I dislike the red toy but if you compare it to this one...I'd like to see a group of kids and which style of toy they would tend to play with, neither of these really has the right design for holding the plane from the underside and running around the room though.
It would be interesting to see the differing attitudes and income levels of the parents.
Perhaps the younger kids would prefer to project their own ideas onto the more neutral toy? I'd hope so.

I would also imagine that....
the first plane costs £150 and the last one £24.99

Which one
looks more like a plane ? Do decorative decals, including recognizable faces, somehow tell the child something that's more meaningful than simple form ? Isn't it said that the most elemental toys allow the child maximum opportunity for imaginative play ?
I take the point about these being "designer" toys -- but who wouldn't want their little darling to grow up with an elevated aesthetic sensibility ? The price is a valid point -- how about if Mattel or Fisher Price came out with a "designer line" at a reasonable cost ?

I of course prefer the red plane
But I suspect that the vast majority of children would prefer the ugly multicolored one with decals.
As I've suggested before-- I think children have lousy taste, they like a lot of gratuitous detail & decoration. I don't think kids prefer "projecting their own ideas onto the more neutral toys" because they're too young to HAVE much in the way of "ideas"-- they're hungry for data, not self-expression.
At least, I was. Maybe I was an aberration, but I doubt it, judging by the aesthetic preferences I witness in children.
See December thread:
http://www.designaddict.com/design_addict/forums/index.cfm/fuseaction/th...

Kids
Most of the kids I watch like the box better than the toy because they can make things out of it and use their imagination. Therefore, i think the more unadorned plain toys with few parts (less breakage) are a more welcome thing in the long run for the child.

Dunno, my kid doesn't seem...
Dunno, my kid doesn't seem unhappy with simple wooden toys. He likes them and carries them around all the time. The red plane isn't very expensive from what I remember. Target sells simple, inexpensive wooden toys. They are around. Just most people don't care to look, or assume the kid will get more joy out of something that blinks and makes noise.

Kids of all ages
I have no idea if small children like Playsam toys, but I enjoy them. I bought several of them on sale. I gave one to my fiancee and kept the rest.
I think that $66.00 is slightly expensive for the airplane.

My personal
experience is that parents today worry too much about this kind of . . . stuff. (I'm a grandmom, I'm allowed to say this). My kids entertained themselves for hours playing in the pots and pans cabinet.
The most fun my 3-year-old ever had was one evening when I was totally engrossed in a TV show, (maybe the final MASH episode?). He snuck in the kitchen, opened the fridge and proceeded to hurl a dozen eggs about the room. Good times.

Anders loves crayons. Kids ar...
Anders loves crayons and rollie pollies. Kids are pretty simple.