The Art and Craft of Toy Design

Stephen Pandolfi

Hello, I'm Stephen Pandolfi. Junior bfa in Design and techology. I live in williamsburg, and have grown up in the New York area since I was very young. Over the summer I worked as an interm under the supervision of Alison Lewis founder or a company called I heart Switch. The team's goal is to invole DIY projects bring togather girls and techology. Visit the site at Iheartswitch.com. Other than that I specialize in making playlists of music as well as DJing here and there. Other than that just making my way through school. My AIM is SPooh85 is anyone has any questions for me or anything.

Jason

My name is Jason Hare. I am a second year MFADT student at Parsons the Newschool for Design. I'm from the Mitten otherwise known as Michigan where I received my undergraduate degree in Industrial Design from the University of Michigan. My work experience includes freelance web and product design. I am also involved with a small independent clothing line called Simple and Plain.

My favorite toy as a kid was either Transformers or GI Joe.

 

I'm excited to use this class as an opportunity to expand upon my product design background and explore wireless technology.

Ana

I am Ana Velez, I was born and also raised in Bogota, Colombia. I have a bachelor’s degree in graphic design. I have been working in the field of signage and graphic identity for diverse cultural institutions in Colombia for about 5 years. I led the signage and identity projects for the Museum of Colonial Art, the Luis Angel Arango Library, the National Museum of Colombia and the Gold Museum, all of which are located in Bogota. I moved to NT one year ago to come to do my MFA in DT with the expectation of learning how to involve technology in the field of information design and environmental graphics.  Here I have been focusing on interaction and web design and the development of signage and information design projects through interactivity.

I am interested on taking the class because I do not have any experience in Physical Computing and maybe my thesis project is going to involve the use of sensors or wireless technology in some way.  I am working on the idea of creating an interactive “tourist experiences” for people which involves having to get into the privacy (people life and private spaces).

My favorite toy when I was a kid was a very non-technological doll made of fabric. Her name was Florecita Madrigales that means "Little Flower" ( I do not have any idea of what Madrigales means but it was her last name).

WORK

AnimaLand / AnimaLand full documentation

DinnerTimer Final / DinnerTimer process / Inspiration  / Concept

Lola the sheep

Rosita the sheep / Inspiration Toys Patterns

Sesame Street Double Fun Giggle Ball: Enrie and Bert (Beto y Enrique)

Ana Inspirational Toys

Ivona

Hi, my name is Ivona and I am a first year MFADT student. I graduated from The Art Institute of Boston with a degree in Graphic Design and for one year I have  worked as a graphic designer.

The DT program is the reason why I have decided to come to Parsons. My goal is to bring both of my interests in design and technology closer and to create functional interactive design. With this class I hope to learn more about the function of wireless toys.

As for my favorite toy I have to say were the Lego's. What I liked the most was the possibility to build various structures in shape and size. 

Alexis

Hi, I'm Alexis and I'm a second-year MFA Design & Technology student. I've worked for many years as a web designer, programmer, and information architect. My main focus at DT in general, and this year specifically, is to explore ways in which interaction design can move outside of the "box" (i.e. monitor, mouse, keyboard interface), such as interactive installation, public space projects, and interactive objects. Since most of my technical skills are software based, I am in this class in an effort to get familiar with some basic aspects of physical computing and to integrate a greater sense of "play" into my work. More information on my work and portfolio can be found at http://www.alexislloyd.com and http://a.parsons.edu/~alloyd

My favorite toy when I was a kid was a doll I had named Suzy. She had a thumb that she could suck, but you had to really hit it to get it to stick in her mouth, so whenever I did that, my dad would say "Bash, bash, bash!" Yes, that's right, I was a doll abuser. But she was my favorite toy and I've never actually seen another doll like her. The dress she's wearing was sewn for her by my friend's mom.

Linh Pham

My name is Linh Pham and I'm a 2nd year MFADT student from Southern California. I did my undergrad at Cal State Long Beach where I majored in Graphic Design and Marketing. My work experience includes working as a freelance graphic/web designer and lately I've been doing some game design stuff. I'm currently interested in interactive design that deal with social networks and public spaces.

I am interested in this class because of its hands on approach and dealing with wireless technology. I've been pretty much avoiding any type of physical computing or building of anything so this is my way of easing myself into this area. I'm looking forward to what we'll be learning and making in this class. I don't want to dissect my toy tomorrow. It is cute and I want to keep it :)

My favorite childhood toys included:

• cabbage patch kids

  
  

  
  (I seriously remember them being a lot cuter!)
  

• carebears

  

  (I think I had about 12 of them)

• teddy ruxpin
  

  

  (I was so pissed off when my mom sent this somewhere and it got lost in the mail along with my cabbage patch kid doll)

Jonah

Jonah can be found at http://www.memewire.com

Shannon

Hey I'm Shannon, and I'm a third year student in BFADT. Last year while working on final projects I realized that I take most of my inspiration from childhood. My last big studio project was a interactive stuffed toy that I made from butchered stuffed animals from when I was young. You can see what it looked like here . So I am very excited to take this class and continue working on similar projects.

My favorite toy from childhood was my Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal. I got him for Christmas when I was 9 months old, and over the years has been loved and hugged until being barely recognizable as Pooh (see above).

He nearly was lost at a McDonald's when I was six, but now safely resides with me in Brooklyn.

More interesting tidbits about me can be found at:
shannon-oneill.com
my flickr gallery

Eddy Rodriguez MFADT

Hi,

My name is Eddy, originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico. I graduated from the University of Puerto Rico with Honors in both Advertising and Graphic Design Majors. I also have an Associates Degree in Civil Engineering, and for the past three years I've worked as an Art Director with a client list of local and International brands like, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Mazda, Make A Wish Foundation, Nestle and others.

Ok, enough with the Blah Blah, I'm a straight to the point individual, and a very approachable guy. I like to learn and learn, chat and discuss any subject, to work in groups and just share the knowledge. My main interests are to use technology as a tool to resolve social and public problems, that may arise from human behavior. Those can be either structural or from cultural origin.

Hope to have a good experience with all of you during this semester, and must of all, HAVE FUN!

Ciao!

PS. Is just chocolate milk on a mug!

Adam

My name is Adam Lewensohn, and this is my last year in DT…
I am originally from
Tel-Aviv, the west coast of the middle-east,
and I moved to New York almost four years ago.

I tasted a lot of the different ‘tastes’ DT has to offer (7th semester), and my background pre DT is film, video productions, post production, music videos and graphics…
Growing up in Tel-Aviv in the early 80’s is surprisingly Americanized, childhood items which I grew up with were my Atari 2600 though my CGA dual floppy was my first PC.

other essentials in my possession were a Smurfs village,

some Transformers (aka Robotrik in Hebrew),

The Clue board game (also translated)

until I started putting Israeli quarters into Pacman video games.

I am in this class because I am very interested in toys and 'Wi-Fi solutions', although I don’t know much about it other than the Hooka Can-antenna I build with Liz Nesher a while back…

My website is discocontinental.com

My Flickr page is flickr.com/photos/adamlewen

I live in Brooklyn.