By Lester Haines
3rd February 2009 11:46 GMT

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.