A Consumer Participation Approach to the Design of Functional Collector Toys by Incorporating Designer Toy Subculture

Abstract

Designer toys have become one of the emerging toy markets since the late 1990’s. Designer toys were designed by artist especially targeted at first to underground art collectors and until now it has been targeted to toy collectors who are predominately males in their 20’s and 30’s. Designer toys exude nostalgic qualities that drawn adults due to its character influence from films, comics, television shows, and cartoons. Also designer toys aesthetic are heavily based on freshly new character designs unlike traditional toys that have character design based on franchise market. Designer toys also has stem into its own subculture which included collectors, artists, and toy companies. The objective of this project is to create an approach for both designers and toy companies to integrate the designer toy subculture elements into a toy design suitable for adults.