Trippy Toy Store

S2K Transformer
Originally uploaded by kardinalsin.

This week's assignment for the Toy Design class was to visit the nearest Toys 'R' Us establishment, take some notes, and basically get an idea of what we want to do for our final assignment. Going there, I already had a little idea of what I want to do (write me for more info, or I'll probably just talk about it later), so I focused on the related sections of the store mostly, but being the horrible toy maniac that I am, I found myself distracted several times.

For instance, here we have what Hasbro has come up with to kind of revitalize their transformer line: Alternators. What they've done here is take their existing characters and pair them with some of the popular contemporary cars. This one is enticing because it's the transformer version of my car. Awesome. I also was amazed at how much more detailed and complex Legos are these days. They had these lego dinosaurs that I would for sure have eaten up when I was younger. It makes me wish I was a kid again!

There were tons of things I took away from my visit, but something that became more prevalent while I was there was the propensity for what our instructor refers to as "watch me toys." These passive toys are troublesome to me, because they leave very little to the imagination, and how are children supposed to develop their own creativity when their toy does all the acting for them. Now, one could assume that this trend started with Tickle Me Elmo, or you could also theorize that with the popularity of video games and other electronic media, toy companies have tried to make an impact by bringing lots of flashiness to their wares. It's depressing to hear my instructor talk about it, in the sense that creativity gets swept under the rug at larger companies in favor of marketing, and that's something I really wanted to apply to the class.

Thing is though, with all this pessimistic talk she's still been able to make our tasks engaging. Most of all, she's been very pro-creativity so far, and I really like that. As the class progresses, I'll have tons more to share, and hopefully I'll get better ideas too. Here's to creativity!