There is much we know about the designers for Has/Tak. From interviews to "behind the scenes" on youtube that can easily be found on Hasbro's site, to articles in Japanese hobby magazines that have us hanging on every word of Kobayashi's and Hasui's, to the stunning revelation that Yuki only had 11 days to design Masterpiece Megatron v 1.0.

But the world of 3rd party designers is shrouded in secrecy. QC can go a long way to establish a company's reputation...but if the designer is not on point, there is only so much a high quality product can do if it is not engineered well and if it does not have an attractive aesthetic. Adding to the mystery, the Transformers designers at Has/Tak have relatively low turnover: there is no competing company for a "transforming figure market" on the same mass retail scale, whereas the 3rd party market is rife with competitors all designing and producing the same product, which leads to companies poaching talent from one another.

Who are the designers? Who are your favorites? Which products are easy to discern by their aesthetic/design?

I only know a few off the top of my head...

1. 539 Designs. Primary designer for X-Transbots MP figures. Was the original designer for the first MP Coneheads, the Igear elegy, attack, and jet.

2. Cassy Sark. Designer for Mastermind Creations reformatted line (feral rex, Carnifex, etc.)

3. Jesslyn (sp?). Designed MMC Ocular Max Sphinx

4. Unknown designer #1. Planet X Genesis and (according to rumor) Maketoys Utopia. Did he/she design Pandinus?

5. Dalianjj/FT designers. Dalianjj designed (I think) FT-01, the MP style trailer for Masterpiece Optimus Prime v 1.0. Later plans included an MP style Soundwave but were scrapped.

6. Gigapower designers. Rumor is that a designer was poached from FT (or vice versa?). Strong rumor that Cloud 9 is a Gigapower related company and the designer for quakeblast is the same one as quakewave

Others

Maketoys designers? Uncertain if they have one designer for their RE:master line, or several.
Fansproject designers?
KFC designers? The difference between Citizen Stack and Simba in their E.A.V.I. metal line is quite stark...may be the same designer but could be different.

Arafat: the Kronos debacle.

Toyworld Constructor?

Personally, my favorites are 539 designs and whoever is making KFC's latest batch of stuff..like Simba and Junkyard.

I really like Gigapower's designers and until recently I was not such a big fan of FT's aesthetic, but whoever designed their Skyfire is on fire