SPINBALL FO R MUNCHKI N I NC. MOCHI
MU NC H KI N I NT E RNS H I P FA2 015 - S P 2 016
MOCHI DESIGNTHEMOCHI@GMAIL.COM 949 . 302 . 1403 MUNCHKIN PD DESIGN INTERN M. TEBBE / M. SAXTON CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR TYPEFACE: GOTHAM PATENT PENDING
CONTENT IN TR O Internship Design brief Mechanism
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CON C EP T DE VE LO P ME N T Round one Round two Round three Round four Round five First round prototypes Hiccup Production samples
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INTRODUCTION
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INTERNSHIP AT MUNCHKIN
At the end of August 2015, I started an internship at munchkin. One of my projects was this infant bath toy. Steve, our CEO had the idea to put the weazel ball in the water and seeing if there was a good way to create a new bath toy out of it. I overheard the Senior Director of Product Development and a Senior Designer speaking about this project. Intrigued, I asked to help on this.
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DESIGN BRIEF
The idea is pretty simple: Come up with some cool graphics to apply onto the ball so that it looks cool spinning in the water. The idea is to create a new infant bath toy.
http://cottageindustry.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Weasel-Ball.jpg
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MECHANISM
The toy operates on a weighted motor. As the motor spins, the ball rolls around. The ‘weasel’ attached to it tugs and pulls at it to make it appear like the weasel is alive and chasing the ball. Simple.
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CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
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ROUND ONE
As per instructions, I began this project by applying graphics to the ball that I thought would be interesting. I also created some graphics that could bump off the ball itself. As it turned out, the ball spins too fast, and the graphics turn into blurs of color.
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ROUND TWO
To create a larger graphic, I began putting faces onto the ball. This way, as it spins, the graphic wouldn’t blur as much. To add character, I put attachments for fins and / or arms to the ball. This also lead me to rounds of fin testing, to see which created the most interesting movements in the water.
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ROUND THREE
I made simple cardboard fins wrapped them in masking tape, and hot glued them to the ball. Then I threw each of them into the water to see the effect. As interesting as it was to see the splashes, the simplest fin configuration was the most charming. The three fins in the back propelled the ball forward, like very slow torpedo. When it ran into a wall or a corner, the ball would eventually spin itself out of it. It felt like it was alive, almost like a little electronic pet. I ran with it.
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ROUND FOUR
At this point, the designers I was working with and I agreed that that fin configuration would be what we were working with. So I went in with more graphics and iterations that could be applied. I continued to iterate on the abstract graphics that our CEO wanted to see. The other designers and I agreed that character iterations aren’t out of the question. So I continued with those as well.
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ROUND FIVE
When this project was presented to our CEO once again, he made the decision for us to move forward with the fish designs. I began iterating on those, switching from tropical fish colors, to munchkin’s usual blue, green, pink and yellow.
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FIRST ROUND PROTOTYPES
At the end of my internships, these were the designs that we were working with.
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HICCUP
I was informed that this project was almost cut. The marketing and product design departments disagreed on whether or not this product would sell! Luckily research proved that it would, and that got the ball rolling again.
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PRODUCTION SAMPLES
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