I've been designing toys for many years. Have designed for most of the toy companies around the area, either as an on-board employee or in a freelance capacity: Animal Fair, Carousel, Princess, Manhattan Toy, Animal Adventure. Also west coast: SnS International, and Canada: Blankets & Beyond out of Montreal.

There's no reason to dress up the phrase: it's a fun job. Pretty much what you might imagine. I design, and then using some combination of drawing (pencil/marker)/computer graphics/photos, end up with a final color version of a plush toy. Specs to the factory produce samples. We critique the samples (or the customer does), and redesign if needed, etc.

I currently work for a man who has three kids. When each of his kids was in kindergarten, we did a toy design demonstration for their class. Peter (the company owner, and my boss) and I put on a little dog and pony show to give them a basic feel for what we do all day in the wonderful world of toy.

Yesterday was his youngest son's kindergarten class toy demonstration.

At 8:45 AM, twenty kids burst into the office. They were obviously on good behavior, but there was a buzz, a hum in the air, more than just the normal sound of twenty small kids chattering, and rustling coats and hats, small tromping snowboots. It was a buzz of energy; they were happy, enthused, excited.

They looked like they'd been on a few field trips before, they knew the ropes. They filed in to the showroom, gravitated to the open space on the floor (made by me, the previous afternoon at the office, by moving our conference table to the corner of the room), took off their coats, and sat down cross-legged on them, somehow ending up in a kid-grid of maybe four rows. They were delightful. They were well behaved. They were amusing and fun. It's hard not to enjoy being around kids.

My job was fairly simple: I had spent most of the previous day pulling together some props for the meeting, and a list of what we might show them. I had written a story called 'Peter's Frog', in a coloring book format, which tells how a toy begins as idea in someone's head, and evolves through the process of imagination/design. I had printed off a bunch of copies of this 7 page story with cartoon illustrations of Peter, and stapled and stacked them on the conference table, along with the other props: fabric books and ribbon books, Pantone color swatch books, a bear turned inside out to show the seams, a big map of China, and a map of the US and the waterways, showing where the ships carrying containers of toys come from, and where they end up here, at our US port.

I basically read the story aloud to the kids. They like it. They giggle where they're suppose to. At the end of the last page they were silent until I added on the words "the end", and then they chuckled. In appreciation, I like to think. ;)

Peter is a natural teacher, and does the explaining about the production/importing process, and also points out on the maps the locations of the ports in China, and in Seattle. He answers most of the questions the kids have. Which are sometimes less questions, and more unexpected statements, such as: [*hand raised*] Yes, Ashley?" "Um... um... I have a bear at home and the eye fell out."

Their basic understanding is that we produce 'animals to give to the Ronald McDonald House'. This is because we give each child, upon leaving the demonstration, a bear to donate to the RMH. They're unaware we actually make money by selling toys. I guess they don't really need to know that at this juncture of their lives.

I talk a little more about what a bear looks like before it's turned and finished, and how the sew'r closes up the stuffing hole, so it can't be seen. The kids look at the fabric swatches, and mill around the design room looking at toys.

Then, they all put on their coats, hats, mittens, form a fluttery, moving line, and gather by the door. When their school bus pulls up, they recite in unison "THANK YOU!!" and file out the door.

All in all, it was delightful. I went back to my desk. Happy, enthused, excited. The usual.

The wonderful world of toy is a good world.


* Photos courtesy of Kathryn Swanson, thank you Dixxie. :)