I had the pleasure of answering a few questions for Meghan over at The Creative Unconscious. Thanks for the opportunity Meghan!
Filtering by Category: Toys,IC Feature
He's blue. He's icy. He's even Glow-In-The-Dark! The 10th official colorway of our beloved buddy, Leroy C. is now available in the shop!
After 2 years in the making, our Odd Galaxy wooden space toys have officially landed! Beautifully manufactured by Uncle Goose Toys in Grand Rapids, Michigan, our new series includes everything for the aspiring astronaut: Lunar Rocket Blocks, Moon Rover Blocks and Cosmo Kid Blocks. Featuring rounded and classic block shapes, O.G. inspires endless possibilities of stacking, building, and creating your own space galaxy. Combine all three sets and the sky is the limit! Available in the IC shop now or wherever fine toys are sold. Happy stacking ...
We'll be in beautiful San Francisco on Dec. 5th for the release of two new IC toys (and prints) from the mighty Super7! Colonel Stinson - our first vinyl figure from Odd Galaxy, and Leroy C. 'Wormwood' Deluxe Edition - a wood + vinyl collab with our friends at Uncle Goose Toys. More details coming - but mark your calendars!
Stack And Scare! is available at Poketo's Pop-In Shop at Nordstrom until August 3rd!
It's that time of year! SDCC is upon us, so let the mayhem begin. LEGO has officially announced their exclusive minifig offerings this year, so we thought it'd be a good time to show some of the packaging and interiors we had fun with. Each clam shell opens up to reveal Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, Bard The Bowman, The Collector and Uni-Kitty in their own element. Oh, and if you have $4,000 burning a hole in your pocket ... grab one of ours from last year with some guy's name scribbled on it. Thanks to our AD's Joseph Galluccio and Jennifer Healy! Happy collecting.
Last year we received a call from our favorite software company, asking us if we'd like to preview the soon-to-be-released Illustrator CC. The one caveat was that we had to create whatever we wanted and document how we did it. Our answer? A resounding 'Awesome!' and "Uh-oh, what are we going to create?" There were no guidelines, save for a few key words: Modern, fearless and reborn. Adobe's theme for the new release.
Since we had just recently bought a farm outside of the city, we were in the thick of having our normal lives turned upside down - yet at the same time, we were having a blast with our new lifestyle. 'Reality. Reborn.' is inspired by that personal transition ... blended together nicely with the amazing new features of Illustrator CC and Adobe's willingness to give us carte blanche on creative direction.
We've been using Adobe's products for almost 20 years now and rely extensively on their tools to create our projects. Huge thanks to Terry Hemphill and the Adobe team for asking us to do this. We had a lot of fun with CC's great new features.
Without further ado, download Adobe's awesome iPad magazine, Inspire to check it all out - or read it online. And to top it all off, grab the mega-huge uber-limited 25" x 46" poster in our shop now.
Read about how we went from sketch phase to final color blocking ... and how our process always evolves as we work.
One of the coolest new features in CC is the Multiple File Place tool, allowing you to adjust the size of your file before dropping them on the artboard.
CC's new Touch Type tool is especially great as well, allowing you to manipulate and edit individual characters without creating outlines.
Those are just 2 of my favorite new features. Read about the rest. A few details below:
... and pick up the giant 25" x 46" poster in the shop now for only $40.
It's an absolute honor to be interviewed by The Great Discontent. Cozy up with that brand new iPad from Grandma and have a read. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Just in time for those blistery cold and lonely nights - FIRESTARTER Leroy C. is here! He'll warm your soul - and toy shelf. We have a super limited run of these, so be sure to get your hot little hands on him quick ...
We are excited to announce the launch of a fun new project we just finished up with the kind folks at Deutsch NY. Deutsch commissioned IC to create 12 unique character toy designs based on the classic song "The Twelve Days Of Christmas" for PNC's infamous annual PNC Christmas Price Index. Beyond the task of creating 12 original characters based on the song, we also designed multiple interchangeable parts for each character - over 100 pieces in total. Partridge In A Pear Tree, Turtledove, French Hen, Calling Birds, Golden Rings, Geese-a-Laying, Swans-a-Swimming, Maids-a-Milking, Ladies Dancing, Lords-a-Leaping, Pipers Piping and Drummers Drumming.
The PNC Christmas Price Index site is loads of fun and allows you to create your own toy by selecting various heads, legs, arms, bodies and accessories. When you are done creating your character, PNC calculates the total cost of what your selection would be in 2013, as well as how much it has gone up or down since 2012.
But the coolest part? For 12 days, PNC is selecting 24 lucky winners per day to receive a 3D-printed gift in time for the holidays! Using Makerbot desktop printers, winners will be chosen randomly and selected each day. The more gifts you build, the more chances you have to win. Read more about that here.
We had so much fun with this project, now it's your turn!
More about PNC Bank's Christmas Price Index:
The PNC Christmas Price Index® shows the current cost for one set of each of the gifts given in the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
It began 30 years ago when the chief economist at PNC Bank decided to figure out how much it would cost to buy each of the gifts. Little did he know, he was starting a holiday tradition that continues to this day.
The PNC Christmas Price Index® is similar to the Consumer Price Index, which measures changes in prices of goods and services like housing, food, clothing, transportation and more that reflect the spending habits of the average American.
The goods and services in the PNC Christmas Price Index® are far more whimsical. And most years, the price changes closely mirror those in the Consumer Price Index. It’s a fun way to measure consumer spending and trends in the economy. So even if “pipers piping” or “geese-a-laying” didn’t make your gift list, you can still learn a lot by checking out how their prices have gone up and down over the years.
Deutsch Credits:
Partner/ Chief Creative Officer: Kerry Keenan SVP, Group Creative Director: Jeremy Bernstein Senior Copywriter: Matt Moyer VP, Creative Director: Qian Qian EVP/Director of Integrated Production: Joe Calabrese SVP/Director of Digital Production: Suzanne Molinaro VP/Executive Digital Producer: Jennifer McBride Senior Art Producer: Hillary Jackson Producer: Jillian Cornette
Production Companies:
MediaMonks (creative digital production) Invisible Creature (toy design & packaging) 3D Printer Experience (3D printing the toys) ShootersNYC (intro/outro video production) Director/DP: Craig Needleman Executive Producer: Jim Huie Senior Editor: Anthony Marinelli Account Director: Amy Sweeney
We're extremely excited to announce that our first line of toys with Uncle Goose is now available! Over a year in the making, Stack And Scare™ is a series of 4 stackable wooden monster block sets. Each Roar! set contains 14-18 pieces in various shapes and sizes. Featuring eyeballs, teeth, horns, arms, rounded shapes for shoulders and eyes, monster heads, hands, feet, legs, torsos, patterns and more. Mix and match shapes or combine with other Stack And Scare™ sets to unleash endless (and taller) creature combinations! Beautifully and meticulously crafted by our friends at Uncle Goose in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Made from FSC certified basswood, using non-toxic inks. Purchase Stack And Scare™ from us, Uncle Goose or independent toy stores everywhere. We designed Stack And Scare™ for everyone at any age. We can't wait to see what you do with them. Share with us at #stackandscare.
And of course ... we thought it would be fitting to create a short "IC Filmmercial" featuring our wooden critters in action. We enlisted our friends in Portland, Beautiful Eulogy, to create a score using the blocks themselves and the result is pretty fantastic. Scroll to the bottom of this post to see how we (and they) made it all happen ...
Roar! Set One:
Roar! Set Two:
Roar! Set Three:
Roar! Set Four:
... And check out how we (and Beautiful Eulogy) made the film ... Then go grab their new album Instruments Of Mercy, out today.
Missed our original teaser? Check it out.
We are extremely excited to announce our new partnership with Uncle Goose Toys. Made in Grand Rapids, Michigan for the past 30 years, Uncle Goose is the world's premiere manufacturer of wooden blocks. We've partnered up with their amazing team to bring the highest quality and most creative wooden toys and playsets to the market. With new products and creations lined up through 2015 and beyond, we couldn't be more thrilled to work with such a passionate company dedicated to their craft.
Hot off their debut at the NY NOW International Gift Show, our first product is titled Stack And Scare. Crafted from replenishable basswood and printed with non-toxic inks, the Stack And Scare series contains four stackable block sets that allow children (and you!) to create and configure hundreds of possible monster options. Before we let too much out of the bag (or box), we've put together a teaser film announcing the new line.
Stack And Scare will be available in retail locations worldwide and through our shop beginning in October. Stay tuned for the big launch ...
We were in the big apple for their debut at the NY NOW show ...
... and we visited the UG workshop in Grand Rapids this month to check out the progress.
We had the great privilege and honor of speaking at LEGO's internal Design Camp last week - a day away from the office for the creative team in beautiful Enfield, Connecticut. Scott Decoteau, along with the talented and generous crew at LEGO, were gracious hosts during our time in New England. Highlights of the trip included the LEGO HQ tour (wow), dangerously delicious indian food, bowling and sharing sentimental stories about the infamous drawstring denim LEGO bag.
To commemorate our talk, we decided to make some things. One of them being a poster of us creating our new mark out of 4,236 bricks - flown in from all over the world. After 2 hot days, 1 broken mallet (don't ask), 6 iced coffees and 3 blisters, the mosaic came to life. Extra special thanks to LEGO for supplying the baseplates.
Unfortunately these posters and prints are not for sale, but who knows - we may throw some in future IC poster orders ...
Is there still a role for designers in the music industry? We're honored to be amongst 7 studios interviewed and featured in IdN's Music Graphic issue.
Recorded music has always been packaged, from the very earliest days when wax cylinders came in cardboard tubes, and has therefore always involved designers. In the palmy days of vinyl LPs with sometimes stunning cover art and often erudite liner notes, the presentation was almost as important as the product.
But with the industry morphing so rapidly into the field of digital-download delivery, where do the graphics come in now? This is a burning question for all those working in the area of visually representing music. To see what their answers are, read this feature story, which solicits the views of seven specialist music designers.
Featuring: Telegramme Studio | Invisible Creature, Inc. | IWant Design | Daniel Reed | Matteo Meta | Leif Podhajsky | Giottographica
// Grab a copy here.
We're honored to be part of the fantastic new book Kern and Burn: Conversations With Design Entrepreneurs curated by Tim Hoover and Jessica Karle Heltzel. Featuring Aaron Draplin, Heads Of State, Arman Vit and many others.
'Kern and Burn: Conversations With Design Entrepreneurs' is a beautiful two-color book that features candid conversations with 30 leading designers who have founded startups, channeled personal passions into self-made careers and taken risks to do what they love. In this book they share their failures, successes, and perspectives. Our hope is that you can learn from them — not to follow in their footsteps, but to chart your own course in parallel, one that allows you to thrive, add value to the world and love what you do.
The entire Kern and Burn project was brought to life by a successful Kickstarter campaign, but here's where it all started. Tim and Jessica's spirit and passion for this book is an inspiration, pick up a copy if you can!
Our latest product for Target is in stores now ... and it's a fun one. Captain Bullseye's Build-A-Plane! Gift Card is a whopping 21 pieces of snap-together awesomeness. Complete with accents of metallic silver, a spinning propeller and a display stand that doubles as a cloud/Gift Card holder. See more here and purchase here. As always, big thanks to our A.D.'s Ted Halbur and Brian Holt. You are now free to move about the toy shelf.
We love our clients. We love Lego. So why not combine the two? For our annual Client Holiday gift this year, we decided to design a custom Eye Creature Lego kit. Edition of 6 sets. 444 pieces. 4 instruction booklets. 8 different mouth combinations - and a hinged top that allows the owner to store all kinds of fun items (as shown below). We even found 2 extremely cute kids from 1972 in my house that wanted to participate in the box design. Disclaimer: This product is NOT affiliated with Lego, folks - this was a gift. Oh, enough already. Check out how we made it below:
Honored to be featured in Print's 2012 Regional Design Annual. Gigantic thanks goes to our favorite clients over at Target inHouse.
The Holidays! Drawing! Toys! Cars! Dogs! Flying goats! Some of our very favorite things are all wrapped up in our latest Gift Card for Target, Bullseye's Draw & Go. Unfold the map, flip the switch and watch Bullseye cruise along! Or better yet, turn the map over and draw your own track (using the complimentary marker) - Bullseye follows along the path you've created! Pretty cool, right? To see him in action, check out our latest Unboxing episode, embedded above. Extra special thanks to Ted Halbur, Brian Holt, Brian Bennett and Kelly Gray at inHouse for the amazingly fun project. Grab one (or ten) here.
