Designing the Toy

The process behind designing any given model is more strenuous that one might think.  You might have an idea about all the work that goes into making a full-size car, for instance, but what about one a fraction of the size?

For this Hot Wheels Dodge
Challenger, the company had to
get approval from Chrysler.

Jil McIntosh of Metro News wrote a piece recently on everything that model car designers have to take into consideration when designing a new piece, and it's pretty interesting. 

For instance, did you know that...

• Many toy car designers actually started as real car designers, some of them working for major automakers?  Or that...

• While some automakers are fine with cartoonish renditions of their cars, most of the higher-end companies will only allow exact reproductions?

Just like the real cars, design ideas for the little ones usually start off as a "napkin sketch."  In the further steps, the designer has to take into consideration the final size, the desired specifications, any integrated technology, even the packaging size.

Jil interviewed a guy named Eric Tscherne, who used to design Hot Wheels.  You can check that out by clicking here.  He also talked about getting the model approved by the real car manufacturer, and that if you're dealing with a high-end company like Ferrari, they may send back the model numerous times with little modifications in order to get it just right. 

For the full article, you can follow this link to Metro News.