How to Become a Toy Designer?

Hamleys, the world’s largest toy store, has an annual turnover of over 5 million! That’s just one toy company, the global toy industry makes billions of dollars through products like action figures, lego sets, board games, and plush toys every year. These products are designed and styled by professionals called Toy Designers. Toy designing involves working on the product design, material design, and verifying every product’s quality for safety standards. Read this blog to know about the career map of a Toy Designer!

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Who are Toy Designers?

A toy designer is someone who creates and designs toys. Toymaker, toy engineer, and toy creator are some of the other job names you’ll see in similar job listings. To generate a new concept, they might work as part of a team or independently. They may also be in charge of estimating production costs and retail costs in order to have the toy’s production approved by their company. As a result, they wear several hats, ranging from creative to business to marketing.

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What does a Toy Designer do?

Toy designers create prototypes and come up with new ideas for toys. They’ll frequently collaborate in groups to develop their own or others’ ideas. They’re also in charge of ensuring that their ideas are feasible and that toys can be produced and sold. The following are some roles and responsibilities:

• Collaborates and helps in the design and administrative tasks from the creation of accepted product concepts to the major development stages; 
• Creates CAD models as well as physical mock-ups;
• Creates product model specifications and written document specifications in technical specification packages;
• Reviews, provide comments and resolve design issues with product pilots’ shape, internal component arrangement, and overall look;
• Make sure samples are coordinated, referenced, and ordered;
• Assists the Marketing team with presentation materials and samples for television commercials, toy fairs, and external presentations;
• Actively seeks out trends, ideas, samples, and information from the marketplace, other toy businesses, dealers, and trade shows that will lead to and promote new product and brand extensions.

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How to Become a Toy Designer?

Here’s a step-wise guide on how to become a toy designer:

Skills Required to Be Successful in Design

• Innovative, creative and design skills
• Communication and presentation skills
• Excellent computer abilities, including experience with CAD, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Solidworks, and other comparable programmes.
• Understanding the production process and material characteristics at a basic level
• Drawing and model-making skills
• The ability to think in three dimensions
• Material and fabric knowledge
• Passionate in continuous learning
• Excellent at addressing problems

Education Qualifications

Toy designers are highly skilled professionals with a background in design and engineering. They possess a good imagination, drawing abilities, and sound knowledge of material and trends. Since toy designing is a broad field there are no specific requirements to enter the field. Interested students can take up professional courses or online courses in toy designing, product development, child psychology, and 3D- drawing. 

They should also be able to construct and manipulate objects with their hands. Skills like sculpting, sewing, and woodworking will frequently come in helpful for most toy designers, depending on their expertise. Although there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to toy designer education, the majority of those who want to work as toy designers pursue post-secondary degrees in product design or toy design.

Courses for Toy Designers

• Diploma in Toy Design and Production
• Diploma in Game Art
• Bachelors in Fine Arts- Toy Design
• BA (Hons) Interactive Toy and Game Design
• Post Graduate Diploma Programme in Toy Design and development
• Toy Product Design
• Masters in Fine Arts
• MA Toy Design
• MDes in Toy Design 

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Curriculum and Syllabus

• Toy Design I and Product Rendering
• Drafting and Technical Drawing
• The Toy Industry: Methods and Materials
• Anatomy for Toy Designers
• Developmental Psychology
• Soft Toy and Doll Design
• Model Making and 3D Prototyping
• Computer Graphics in Toy Design
• Marketing for the Toy Industry
• Motor Learning: A Developmental Approach
• History of Industrial Design 
• Design Engineering
•  Computer Graphics in Toy Design
•  Storybook Design and Licensed Product
• Geometry and Probability Skills
• Topics in Probability and Geometry
• Games and Game Theory

Top Colleges Around the World

• University of Wisconsin La Crosse, USA
• University of Ottawa, Canada
• The University of Hull, UK
• Anglia Ruskin University, UK
• Monash University Malaysia, Malaysia
• University of Bristol, UK
• Melbourne Polytechnic, Australia
• Otis College of Art and Design
• University of Central Lancashire, UK
• University College Cork, Ireland
• New York University, USA
• Queen Mary University of London, UK
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA
• Sheffield Hallam University, UK

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Top College in India

• National Institute of Fashion Technology
• National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad
• MSU – The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda
• Pearl Academy Rajouri Garden
• National Institute of Fashion Technology, Mumbai
• Amity University, Noida
• IIFA Lancaster International Campus
• National Institute of Fashion Technology, Bangalore
• IIT Bombay – Indian Institute of Technology
• MIT Institute of Design, MIT ADTU

How to Get a Job as a Toy Designer?

The best way to work in the toy industry is to connect with toy manufacturers during your graduation and get some work experience as a part-time or as an intern. If you are planning to pursue a career in Toy Designing after your graduation, then try doing a master’s course in toy designing and related fields and then start your internship with any organization that deals in toy manufacturing or apply for a job in these organizations. Getting into an internship right after/during your graduation can really really help you in gaining some real-world experience and enhance your skills.

Career Scope

While there are several job postings in this field, an individual might start their career as a product designer with an average salary of 5 lakhs per annum. With some experience, one can be promoted to a management-trainee position with an average salary of 6-7 lakhs per annum and senior-level individuals may get an annual package of around 8 lakhs per annum.

Top Recruiting Companies

• Funskool
• Bandai Namco
• Hansbro
• Hot Wheels
• MGA Entertainment
• FirstCry
• Mattel Inc.
• Hamleys
• Lego Inc.
• Toy R Us
• V Tech
• Takara Tomy Co Ltd

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