Ulf Hanses came to Stockholm as a nineteen-year-old apprentice to Sigvard Bernadotte, the Swedish design prince. Hanses attended art school in the evenings and rounded off his formal education at the school of industrial arts. After two years he broke off his studies and began work at the drawing board in his own workshop in Stockholm. After 7 years in Stockholm, he moved to his home town of Borlänge. In the beginning of the 1980s he developed a toy programme for handicapped children. But the climate for such ideas was harsh and Ulf Hanses learnt to rely on his own intuition as a designer. He developed a routine that today gives him the possibility of turning over ideas in freedom with his client. The Streamliner - the little wooden car for Playsam - cannot be designed to order he says. Inspiration doesn't run on rails. You have to struggle and grapple with problems. I turn things over and around in my mind and quickly make prototypes that I show to my clients. It facilitates all those discussions that, for me, are a necessary part of the development work that remains before the product is ready for showing.