Toy Design Students

We’ve had some discussion on this board about what schools have Toy-Specific design programs. Can we get any feedback from students (or grads) of some of these programs?

Personally, I just went the general ID route and am curious how toy-only programs compare.

Also, to any current student working on projects right now, this forum is getting more traffic from industry pros. Post your projects (the earlier the better) if you want some feeback from people in the biz as you’re developing your concepts…

I know a couple people who have “toy design” focused degrees. One of them went to FIT and one to a school in Cali. Both of them seem to have relatively the same skillset at the industrial design degreed person. I think the difference might have been when they first started as a toy designer they knew more about creating “character” art. (i.e. sculpting packages, PMS callouts etc). When I started as a staff toy designer all of that was new to me. I knew how to draw detail drawings/orthos but never with characters- specifically licensed characters.

how many here follow design spokesperson Bruce Nussbaum’s blog over on BusinessWeek, but sometimes he says things that I don’t get. Like some remarks in his recent entry that I just wrote about (link).

At the same time, you see an unprecedented amount of attention being paid to design by some big, influential companies like P&G and GM.

The innovation thought is designs the inspiration the accumulation. Must do vanguard design wants reversion thought.
:unamused:

Well… I think people with ID background will enable people to integrate some interesting idea to BUILDING a character. ID helps people solve problem. That gives chance to re-exam a character, something like romantic or its reverse side. Nowadays, smart character is fond by people, so when it comes to TOY, no matter it’s a mankind or any kind of form of creature, how it can have a smart character, it depends on how it solves problem… the old fashion with gorgeous look even the dead cool look…people are so easy to be fed up with things like that…so…it’s a right time for ID to get involved in, definitely it can include any other people from all kinds of fields.

Some friends and I started a short-run program to study SOLVING PROBLEM TOY about 4 weeks. Well you may call it as under the name of TOY either. The design theme was called BUTTON. The main idea was focused on the function of all kinds of buttons. We tried to extend the definition of BUTTON, even the cap of a soft drink bottle can be regarded as BUTTON. It turned out that brilliant things were born… Sometimes people are having a hard time when it comes to story, things like the background of a TOY. But through this way, we found it’s fun to create new story. Totally based on FUNCTION. FUNNY IT IS!

But unfortunately, I don’t know how to post those images here. Any clue? THANX IN ADVANCE.