We’ve loved Bajo for years now for their finely crafted wooden vehicles, rattles and other playthings for babies and toddlers. Now we’re falling for this Polish toy company all over again thanks to the very hip crowd puzzle – Bajo’s first toy for bigger kids. 

The Bajo Crowd Puzzle is a pure delight and – we’re tipping – destined to become a modern toy classic. The wooden block-style puzzle caught our eye at the recent Kids Instyle trade show in Melbourne and has already been snapped up by the influential Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney.

Made from Polish beech, the Crowd Puzzle comprises fourteen different faces that fit together in a particular way. It’ll keep kids engrossed for hours, whether they use it as a puzzle or just play with the faces, while also looking damn good on your coffee table. (Psst, if the puzzle proves too tricky, there’s a handy ‘cheat’ on the box.)

It’s not just the blocks themselves that we love, for all their beech beauty and graphic coolness. The story behind how they came about is a lovely tale too. They are the creation of Ania Bajor, who inspired her architect father Wojtek Bajor to start Bajo many years ago when he couldn’t find the kind of toys he wanted for his then-toddler daughter.

Fast-forward two decades and little Ania is now twenty-two and a rather talented design student at Krakow University. The puzzle is her first toy to come out of the family’s forest workshop in the foothills of Poland’s scenic Carpathian Mountains. What a stunning debut, we can’t wait to see what Ania comes up with next.

Pick up your own set of Bajo‘s crowd puzzle blocks for $35 at Hard To Find, with free shipping within Australia. Check our previous posts for more cool blocks and puzzle finds.