Toy Fair Crunch

Every February the Toy Fair is held in New York City. It's usually held at the Javits Center (a really big friggin convention center). The event is for toy makers off all sizes, to present their new toys for the upcoming season. Mattel, Hasbro, Lego, and just about every toy company you can think of has a booth there. Be on the lookout early next week for all of the reports from the convention featuring hot new items that reporters like (and rarely predict which ones will be successful). David Lettermen usually has someone on to showcase a bunch of items, that Dave does his best to damage in many colorful ways.

Every year the week before Toy Fair is busy for those of us in the package design business. It's usually a good thing for the cash flow and a bad thing for those of us who enjoy sleep. It never fails that companies have last minute changes to packages and they must be made only days before the show. C'mon, they only had a year to get this stuff figured out!

So, last night after I left work, I get a call from Stoner saying we have an emergency for the morning... a package redesign. No problem. I'm used to it. I come in early to tackle it.

The part that sucks is that I have a couple of hours to redo this package, that the client apparently had their color-blind cat create, and then I get Connie and Carl coming in every 30 minutes to check on my progress.

Quick Tip: If you'd like to anger me in the quickest way possible, watch over my shoulder as I work and ask me what I'm doing and when it'll be done.

I spent the morning making a presentable version of this package. The original had rainbow type, white type with a white glow, random branding shapes, and lots of misspellings.

Mini Lesson: Rainbows are bad! Rainbow type is really bad! Let me explain why. The designer's job is to control the eye so that the consumer can easily understand what the product is and who it's for. Any text should be easy to read and should follow a hierarchy of most important message to secondary and tertiary messages.

A rainbow contains all of the colors, therefore making it nigh impossible to control the consumer's eye... and it's gay.

So, after I finished with the redesign, submitted it and took 5 seconds to breathe we heard back from the client. They said they liked what we did and would have their designer incorporate elements of our design into theirs.

I hope that before they continue the client at least keeps their designer away from the catnip. That stuff is powerful.