January 26th 2012
The BTHA Toy Fair trade show, held at London Olympia, hosted a ‘Design Student Day’. A group of Brunel design students were given the valuable opportunity to attend the show, normally just for trade, and presentations on entering the toy design industry.
John Stewart, Co-Director of Worlds Apart (http://www.worldsapart.co.uk/) greeted the students and introduced Andy Partlett, the 3D Development Manager at Worlds Apart. As Andy explained, “Kids are enthusiastic and honest consumers, they want to love your work.” Designing for children and infants generates such exciting responses, and their imagination is inspiring to work with – to children, “Technology is magic”. It seems such a satisfying development process and company to work in, only enforced by the passion that Andy and John spoke with.
Introducing many to the ‘sizzle’ acronym, Andy shared some fantastic insights into new product development within Worlds Apart, and how they develop the techniques for pitching to retailers. Of course, he also presented the important process of conforming to toy standards, sharing an interesting case where the difference in American and British standards required some major design changes.
Ieuan Hopkins of the V&A Museum of Childhood (http://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/), was next to present. He shared a fantastic insight into the history of toy design, standards, and the effect of fashion and the ‘real world’ on toys. Particularly interesting to see was the changes in materials used in toys, and one case where the plastic used to make baby dolls became ‘poisoned’, resulting in a strange reaction, still preserved at the museum.
David Fry of Agile IP, presented a very different topic, sharing the importance of IP and patent law to students at the event. Most useful, were the examples that David shared of products known to most of us (eg Blow Pens) and the huge court cases surrounding infringements of patents. Just a few words in a contract can create a multi-million pound court case, it certainly helped realise the severity of these situations.
Students were given the opportunity to explore the rest of the Toy Fair (and given a free lunch voucher – get in). For those interested in entering the toy design industry, the day was a first insight into the real world of toy trade shows. Personally, having attended many on placement, the talks from Andy and John only enforced my interest in entering toy and children’s product design.
Sophie O’Kelly, Level 3, Studying Product Design BSc
