What is their job title and what kind of college degrees do most of them have? What type of design are they listed under?

 

I know there is a lot of engineering and CAD is mandatory. I use to work at Mattel and its not fun designing, and those were just simple Hot wheels.

 

These people get a degree in Industrial Design. In industrial design, there are several divisions, including toy design, shoe design, automotive, etc.

Depending on what company you work at as an Industrial Designer, you have a ratio of sketching, CAD modeling, and physical models to mock up to complete projects (in this case toys).

I have a buddy who co-oped at Hasbro (not the transformers dept.), and he told me that it's mostly sketching (including concept art, and color spec sheets). Those designs get sent out to some Asian company to do the engineering (in the case of Transformers, I heard it's Takara).

 

Awesome! That's what I was thinking. I'm wanting to go in that direction for college. If not that, I'd want to do something in concept art, like Josh Nizzi.

Right now I'm taking classes at a vocational school that deal with design and I'm hoping they can help me get my foot in the door... and I'm still in high school.  

 

from what i've read takara designers in japan do all the hard work. like putting the toy engineering into each TF toy.

while all hasbro seems to do is design a few art sketches on paper. flesh out the character bio & cartoon series story arcs.

 

Best of luck to you, you could be our next Botcon speaker!

 

This is also possibly a good question to ask for one of those Hasbro Q&A.

 

This.

I'm not 100% sure, but I've been getting a very strong vibe for a long time that if you want to actually design Transformer toys you have to work for Takara and live in Japan.

 

Might actually be a good question to throw out when Hasbro does there 5 question thing every so often.

 

I wouldn't say it's all done in Japan by Takara. Remember, Floro Dery did the designs for the Season 3 characters and toys. And Don Figueroa did the initial Classics Optimus design.

Concept Design seems to just go to whoever it is assigned to. Or possibly even a number of people, with a number of designs submitted to Hasbro to- for lack of a better term, pick their favorite.

I'm not going to pretend I know how the game works, but I will say this: if you're seriously looking into doing Concept and Character Design, be ready to be doing A LOT of drawing.

 

IIRC, Supreme BB was a Hasbro only effort, as were the 6 inch Titaniums, although the team being those had no previous TF design experience.

Some might argue both make a good case for ongoing work with Takara.

 

Werent the Titaniums done by the old galoob team that did the original Micromachines?
I actually love the 3 inch selection they are very detailed and have a nice feel, and look great.
The problems started when they had to make stuff Transform.

 

And Classics BB and Mirage were designed - concept and transformation - by an Aussie fella, Alex Kubalsky (though that was working within Takara).

Good luck, Vader Prime, and read this:
PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” Archive Transformers’ Toy Design

 

I've done industrial design work, and there's A LOT more to it than just making a few art sketches on paper. I'm sure Aaron Archer's team consider A LOT, especially working in a corporate environment (which I've had experience in).  

First, obviously, there's coming up with the robot and alt mode design.

Then, there's a cost analysis on the design, based on the price bracket (Deluxe, Voyager,etc.). If it costs too much, then there's either a part reduction, joint changes (ball joints, ratchet joints, swivels, etc.), assembly changes (screws vs. pins), assembly processes (consideration for factory workers). I heard they talk about margins in terms of PENNIES! That's how picky they are about cost vs. price.

Then there's also toy safety laws (damn lowest common denominator kids getting in the way of toy sweetness!). Toys can look sweet in the prototype stage, but then dumb gov't laws mandate this gets rounder, this missile gets lengthened, this plastic sword gets softer (coughBludgeoncough).

Then there are the prototypes, unpainted and painted. I'm sure they tweak proportions of panels, details, hinges, ball joints, etc. And I'm sure the team HAS to say, "let's tweak this color, it's not quite right, etc.". And that's a back-and-forth thing between Hasbro and Takara, which mind you Takara is in a WAAAAAAY different time zone than Rhode Island. So both companies meet up in a wierd time schedule.

EVEN with all of those things met, then you have corporate politics (I've seen it happen at another corporation, and boy, it can get ugly). Product managers bitch because this design cuts a liiiitle too much into their profit margins (making the product manager look bad in front of his boss, even though they have a kickass looking product in their hands), so they push design managers to cost out too much. Or product managers want to rush something out, at the price of quality. It's up to designers to push back, for the sake of quality.

AND THEN, sometimes you get marketing people that think they are designers. What's dangerous is if they can get into the heads of product managers. Those design decisions can get in the way of a figure being a great figure. Let's put in a GIMMICK! That'll sell millions! Automorph! Mini-cons! Powerlinx ::gags:: Let's cost out that toy more and we'll jam in that gimmick somewhere! I remember there was a podcast Where Vangelus was talking about Takara explaining why Classics 1.0 was so great, the reason being was there was no dumbass gimmick jammed into the toys.

I'm sure it's up to Archer's team to balance all of these things: design, cost, production, and yes, corporate politics. Add all that up, and you have a fast-paced, high stress (it's good stress ), but fun environment.

I haven't worked at Hasbro, but based on my experience, I don't think this is too far from what the Hasbro team's workload really entails.

 

I remember this!

Too bad, his design style is something some of the more recent/forthcoming Generations toys seem to be lacking in.

 

If you can afford it, there's a great design school in California. I forgot the name of it but it's pretty advanced. I wanted to go there a few years ago for concept car designing as that was always my ultimate dream job. But it was just way too expensive and I just don't have the patients for CAD. Might want to look into it. Sorry the names slipped out of my mind but I'm sure you can find it by googling California industrial design schools.

 

Art Center.  

I do have to say, if you want to work at Hasbro, I think your best bet is to go to school at Cincinnati DAAP (or DAP?). Cincinnati has a 5 year program, and you are required to co-op every other semester, I think starting your sophomore year. Hasbro loves to hire co-ops from that school. I think Mattel also hires a lot of co-ops as well.

Just to warn you, you might not get into the Transformers division. You might end up working in the Marvel division (which is still kick-ass), Tonka, Nerf, or even the girl's division. So you HAVE to LOVE Industrial Design in general, especially toy DESIGN (collecting toys isn't enough).

Design, like any other technical/professional field involves a LOT of hard work, and just taking classes and going through the motions isn't enough. Design isn't just a 9-5, 40 hour work week. Design is a way of life (ugh I hate how presumptuous I sounded there). But if you like a fast paced & demanding environment that tests your technical AND creative skills, by all means go for it! It's one of the coolest and most admired careers out there!     

BTW, I'm going into my last semester in September at CCS in Detroit (another pretty darn good school too).