Working with Golden Bear

Golden Bear Toys, based in Telford, are one of the leading toy manufacturers in the UK specialising in the licensor sector. In The Night Garden is well known across the globe with a range of characters loved by young children (and adults!), so the design and development of new toys for the brand have to pass stringent licensor approval processes to ensure that the design and ethos of the toy meets the brand values.

Golden Bear's in house design team work closely with the license holders to agree new products and character poses. Golden Bear initially asked us to help accelerate the process from toy conceptual design through licensor approval phases and through to data release for manufacturing - to ensure that the original design intent was maintained throughout.

Our approach is based around rapid design iteration where we take the in house design team's ideas and develop them in 3D to quickly build up initial datasets that can be used for visualisation for licensor feedback, and for production budgetting. We do this using a range of 3D CAD systems, including Rhino, Creo and SolidWorks, supported by visualisation and animation software and often in house or bought in 3D printing.

Using this rapid development process lead times have been reduced and design intent maintained as potential production issues with specific forms or finishes can be flagged much earlier in the development process.