It starts with a pencil on a rainy afternoon. Dick Bruna was on holiday in North Holland in 1955, trying to entertain his young son, and he drew a small white rabbit — two black dots for eyes, a cross for a mouth, a palette of primary colours and nothing else.

Bruna was a graphic designer by training, and that discipline is what makes Miffy work. He removed everything until only the essential remained, and what remained turned out to be enough to carry generations of children through their first encounters with stories, feelings, and the shape of the world. The books have sold over 85 million copies in more than fifty languages. You can find Miffy's image in the Design Museum in London, MoMA in New York, and on a square in Utrecht named after her. She belongs, quietly and completely, to both the toy box and the design canon.

Dick Bruna passed away in 2017, at eighty-nine. The character he drew on a rainy afternoon to entertain a child is still doing exactly that.