Hans Beck, the man who invented Playmobil, died last Friday at the age of 79 following a "serious illness", Deutsche Welle reports.

Trained furnituremaker Beck worked for manufacturer Geobra Brandstaetter from 1958 to 1998, and in the 1970s responded to his employers' request to design a "collectible toy" by creating the Playmobil universe.

To date, Geobra Brandstaetter has exported 2.2bn Playmobil figures to 70 countries, in the process growing to a company with almost 3,000 real people on its payroll, and sales last year hitting a cool €452m.

Beck’s motto was "No horror, no superficial violence, not short-lived trends", and we'd like to think he'd approve of El Reg's creative application of his famous toy. ®

Bootnote

Thanks to Morten Clausen for bringing this sad news to our attention.

Related stories

• Malta pair charged over illicit Playmobil trade (16 June 2009)
• 2008: The year the little people walked the Earth (24 December 2008)