Toy designers are evil

Since Core did not transfer old posts, I would like to continue on my rant. The previous post had one guy sticking-up for toy designers, but nothing personal, the excuses were a little weak. If this was about an occational toy, I wouldn’t complain. I would say must of the crap my kids received for the holidays exhibited at least one (sometimes several) of the problems listed below.

To recap the evilness of toy designers.

Ill-fitting parts - High-tolerance rotomolded parts is an oxymoron, I literally had to grind away plastic to get a toy workbench together

Poor assembly instructions - Sometimes none, sometimes poor illustrations, sometimes poor printing quality, sometimes just plain wrong

Thousands of “accessories” - You get a doll and it comes with so many little bits of crap and there is not included something to contain it all after it comes out of the package

No means to pick up the accessories - How about a vacuum that will pick up the parts off the carpeting and blow them into the toy box without the dirt from the floor

Sharp edges - When I was in college, I worked construction and stepped on a nail that went through my foot. That pain is nowhere near the amount of pain as stepping on a small injection molded part (Legos especially)

Over abundence of packaging tie-downs - I need a blow-torch to free the toy from its packaging prison. I have designed packaging for expensive medical devices that can’t shift in transit and cannot break without creating a toy-packaging vault.

Battery eating - I can play for a whole hour before I need to replace them.


New thoughts on the evilness of toy designers.

High noise volume - I can hear most of these toys from down the block. I don’t need Elmo yelling at me.

Battery labeling - I understand needing to screw-down the battery cap so the kids don’t eat the battery. Just let me know what type of battery the thing takes so I know if I have replacements before I get the screwdriver out.


I feel much better now.

i have to agree with toy product today. There will always be a pro and con side to their marketing approach. From cost to getting out the product.

This is where designer in general comes in and revamp the product and tool around more of a environmental safe aspect in them. Also, functional toys should last long and not last only a matter of seconds.

but i have to agree on what you have listed.