Phat Ghost Vinyl Toy

From School Work to Passion Project

During my final year of my degree I had an assignment to create a fictitious correspondence with a factory for an RFQ. I had always wanted to produce my own vinyl toy, and I requested to make real correspondence by designing and quoting my own design.

A Wholistic Design Challenge

Since we were taught in school that industrial design would span outside of just visual design, I wanted to challenge myself with experiencing a broader view of getting a product to market.

At the time when I was coming up with the design I was inspired by the seasonal styles of Fall, such as puffer jackets and anoraks. These were the styles that the hypebeasts and "Toronto Mans" (as they're referred to by some in my neighborhood) always wore. My biggest inspiration was how some wearers would huddle and hide their mouths and hands in their jackets to escape from the cold.

Developing the Concept

With my inspiration in mind, I developed the design first with hand sketches followed by a robust CAD model in Solidworks. After creating a model I was happy with in Solidworks, I developed my desired CMF by rendering the model in Keyshot. Once I was satisfied with my direction, I created a simple tech pack for factories as I had learned to do during my internships.

Creating the Tech Pack

In the vinyl toy scene I knew most artists had toys produced in 1 of 3 countries: USA, Japan, and China. I evaluated each destination based on my production volume, my design direction, and the amount of time I had to execute the project. I ended up deciding to run my production in China.

Selecting a Vendor

North America

North American vinyl toy producers provided clearer communication, more reputability, and more design support. However, due to their popularity in North America these firms had long waitlists, higher prices, and longer project times.

Chinese vendors of varying prices and MOQs are easily accessible through platforms like Alibaba. Although this was a very flexible and affordable route, there was also a lot of risk involved with regard to reputability, quality, and cost.

Japan is deeply rooted in the art toy culture through the Sofubi scene, but it is a very closed community. Specialized producers of Sofubi are unaccessible to outsiders and are expensive, but the quality and credibility is unmatched.

Japan

China

Being my first time sourcing a vendor, I tried to be very careful in making my decision. I identified several vendors with positive reviews and strong production capabilities. I reached out to each vendor to request quotes based on my tech pack as well as samples of their vinyl toy production quality. After receiving all the information and samples, I selected a vendor and had them produce a sample of my design. After reviewing and approving the sample, tooling took about a month to produce. Following this, the first vinyl sample was pulled and painted.

Manufacturing

Color Matching and Application

This first pull came out nicely from the mold, but the purple gradient didn't come out quite right. I really liked how the 3D-printed sample from a different factory had come out, so using photos of that sample I requested the changes to be made. The factory that did the 3D sample had apparently not used the purple I had spec'd in the CMF, so I had to find a purple that matched the one they had used for my factory. Once I found the swatch they went to work and I received an updated pull within a day.

Once all of the necessary revisions were made, the production run was made. I had a small MOQ of 50 units, so it was very quick. When the parts finally arrived in Canada, I had to pay some customs fees, but receiving was fairly simple. Once my toys arrived at my house, I unboxed, unbagged, and personally inspected each toy for issues or manufacturing defects.

After the colors were corrected, an issue with the mold was found during secondary inspection. There were several sand spots on the mold that were making visible blemishes. The repairs delayed the production timeline by about a week, but this delay was worth incurring considering it's impact on part quality.

Mold Blemishes and Repairs

Receiving and Final Inspection

With production of the actual product completed, I moved on to merchandising the product, namely branding and packaging design. After receiving some quotes for this from the vendor, I decided with a run this small I could do most of what I wanted in-house at a much lower cost. I looked at several areas of inspiration to develop a brand language to apply.

Branding and Packaging Development

Sneaker Culture

I got a lot of inspiration from sneaker culture when it came to the packaging. The material combinations and accent details of some of my favorite shoe styles such as the Nike Vapormax.

Since the design was derived from the street culture, I wanted to try and incorporate similar fashion trends into the typography, graphics, and composition as well. I looked at some major brands and tried to distill some interesting styles I could try to use.

When I was designing the packaging for this toy there was a bit of a spike in all clear, or X-Ray, CMFs for products on websites like Urban Outfitters. Tying in with my whole "More Ghosts" theme, I thought that minimal opacity would match my product and also help make the product's color pop.

X-Ray Styles

Hypebeast and Streetwear

After finishing the product and packaging I started to sell my toy. I shared it on reddit and locally at my school, and was able to sell most of my first production run. I have since moved on to experimenting with different CMFs and refining the character design to accommodate for more expressive poses. In future, I would like to set up my own small-scale production operation at home using a resin 3D printer and airbrush.

Final Product and Next Steps