Evolvems

Flying Monkey's first product line to be developed from concept to production and sales was the Evolvems® line of evolution science based plush toys. The idea came about in the spring of 2008 and was first on sale in November of 2009. In 2009 and 2010 Evolvems® were sold through specialty stores, museum shops and online retailers, including the American Museum of Natural History and Thinkgeek.com.

Below I map out my development process.

The Idea

At the time that I had decided to found Flying Monkey LLC, I had been reading quite a bit about Evolutionary Anthropology, which attempts to explain human behaviours as deriving from evolutionary adaptations. This new interest in evolution fed into my desire to design innovative and interesting toys for kids.

I decided to review the marketplace for toys and products for kids to see if there we products that introduced children to the science of evolution. I found many science kits about paleontology, plenty of dinosaur figures and plush, some books about evolution, and references to non-scientific notions of evolution in games like Pokemon. The toys were overly focused on dinosuars and generally failed to provide a prehistorical context (what animals came before, which came after).

The idea came to me to create a cute plush toy of a dinosaur or other extinct creature with a pocket, and stuff another plush toy inside as the stuffing, that when flipped inside out would reveal another animal that is related but existed millions of years later and shows an interesting evolutionary transition.

Proof of Concept

The idea seemed feasable and other reversible plush toys had been on the market, but usually flipped from a figure to a ball, like the Popples. Before proceeding further I knew I needed to test whether a plush creature could indeed flip to reveal another creature.

I purchased two similar plush toys and cut them open, pulled out the stuffing and sewed them together. Although the toys were 't designed specifically to flip, it was possible to flip them back a forth with a bit of effort. It was a positive sign that properly designed the flipping could work well and would be a really fun feature.

Branding and Logo

An appropriately fun name was needed. After some trial and error I came up with Evolvems®. I liked that the name didn't shy from the scientific content and also provided a feeling of the action of flipping. Next, the word Evolvems® needed to be given a graphical form, for packaging and marketing materials.

Research

For Evolvems® to work it was important that the animal pairs were carefully selected and their evolutionary relationship was based on actual scientific evidence. Even if the design were cute and fun I wanted parents to know that the information they were teaching their children with these toys was accurate (or as accurate as could be expected given the fossil evidence and current understanding).

I spent a couple of months reading about the scientific concepts underpinning evolutionary theory and began cataloging animals that seemed to have cool attributes and placing them in context to other animlas in a giant family tree. I then selected genus pairs that showed a dramatic or interesting change in form along a branch of the evolutionary tree. From 25 such pairs I chose 6 to start the line.

Character Design

With creature pairs selected, it was time to look into the actual design of the toys. Although the toys were scientifically based I wanted to make sure the design was simple and fun and would attract a child's attention. Rather than start with the 3D toy design, I wanted a graphic design language for the line so I decided to hire an illustrator to help develop the look of the line. After talking to a number of illustrators online and at comic conventions I selected an artist to work with and we proceeded to work on the feel of the line and detail the first creature pairs.

Toy Design & Sourcing

Such a complex design required that assembly and manufacturing be considered during the toy design phase. It became clear that the patterns would need to be developed with the manufacturer to ensure that the product could be produced and final cost considerations could be taken into account. I went to a few sources to solicit prototypes based on the illustrations and got a wide variety of levels of quality in design and craftsmanship. I eventually selected a source based on their designer's expertise and ability to provide the product at a reasonable price.

Packaging Design

At the same time as the toy designs were being finalized, details about packaging needed to be worked out. The main thing the packagng needed to do would be to communicate the two-in-one and unzip-and-flip ideas to the shopper. I had a few ideas about how best to package an Evolvems® plush but each needed to be priced out.

Boxed packaging wold provide the most surface area to display the fact that there were two toys in one, but was prohibitively expensive. Most plush have only a hang tag to display the brand and produt features. With boxes out I wanted to look into using a lenticular (which shifts from one image to another depending on the anle ones looks at it) for the hang tag. Again this was a bit to expensive to include with each toy, so I settled on a traditional hang tag.

American International Toy Fair

With product in the works it was time to hang my shingle and setup a booth at the American International Toy Fair in New York. This would be my opportunity to get final feedback on the product, test the market, and try to drum some orders and press. It also turned out to be a great opportunity to learn about the retail business in general, make connections with other toy manufacturers, designers and industry professionals, and collect intelligence about the direction and trends in the toy industry. Although I have only been an exhibitor in 2009 and 2010, I continue to go every year to maintain these connections and keep up on the trends.

Marketing & Sales

Having orders in hand for product for the following holiday season, I placed my order with the manufacturer and began to work on a marketing strategy. The first and most obvious element was to setup a website where customers and retailers could go to learn about the product and place an order. I wanted to focus on wholesale sales so partnered with Shopatron for individual sales. I promoted the website through email campaigns and facebook ads.

Next I wanted to create some free ancilliary content to create a richer experience around the Evolvems® brand. I partnered with a children's writer and another comic artist to develop a comic book that told the story of one of the Evolvems® creature pairs.

To drum up holiday sales I created a postcard which friends and I distributed near New York's science museums and toy stores. I also ran a promotion on a popular science Podcast called TWIS (This Week in Science) to reach the online science geek commuity.

Sales for the 2009 holiday season and 2010 were encouraging but...

Epilogue

... With a son on the way, a pesky day job to go to everyday, and a backlog of other toy and game ideas I hadn't been able to work on, I decided to cease sales and development of the line and try to license the line to another toy manufacturer. I am currently in discussions with a number of manufacturers to identify their interest and see if a partnership is possible.

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