It’s not often that a children’s app wins awards before even finding its way onto the Apps Playground iPad. But Metamorphabet is one of those apps, and deservedly so.

Created by digital artist Patrick Smith, it’s a wonderful spin on the overcrowded alphabet-app genre, getting children and adults alike to explore its animated letters.

“Poke, prod, drag, and spin the letters of the alphabet to reveal surprising and luminous transformations,” suggests its App Store listing.

“With an easy-to-use interface and responsive, organic design, Metamorphabet is a wonderful educational tool for children, inviting them to playfully explore the alphabet and expand their vocabulary.”

The letter ‘B’ sprouts a strokable beard, for example, then a beak which opens up to reveal a cloud of bugs and a butterfly. ‘C’ turns into a cone that can be rolled around the screen, before morphing into a rotating siren on a car driven by a caterpillar. And so on.

It’s beautifully done, with lots of room to play – for example, I got happily stuck for a few minutes bouncing the car up and down like a basketball. I’m not sure the caterpillar was impressed.

Anyway, this is brilliant: the kind of digital craftsmanship that deserves a place on any parent’s homescreen. Metamorphabet costs £2.99 for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store. And we recommend checking out Smith’s other apps too.