Toyish Kickstarter Campaign
Background: While working as an Industrial designer at Toyish Labs Inc., I helped organize and develop a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to raise funding for toy manufacturing.
Learnings: Through the experience, I developed multiple skills in various disciplines, such as managing social media. Most importantly, I recognized the power of telling good stories. Stories that root deeply in understanding the audiences and what they value.
Company: Toyish Labs Inc.
Team: 2 designers, 1 photographer, 1 video editor
My Role: Campaign co-creator, Campaign story line development, Campaign material production, Copywriting (partial)
Duration: 1 month
Tools: Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere Pro
Recognition: raised over $40,000 in a month, selected as one of the favorite projects by Kickstarter, covered by multiple media outlets
* The following content is a replica of the original Toyish Kickstarter campaign page on the Kickstarter platform. *
Toyish is a hands-on toy kit that empowers children to design and build their own toys. Watch your kids light-up with joy!
Toyish coloring pages
Take a Tour Around the Toyish World:
Toyish Prestigious Awards:
As Featured On:
Toyish is for girls and boys ages 3 and up. Making your own Toyish is easy:
1. Toyish empowers kids to be active creators rather than passive consumers.
Toyish engages kids by keeping both their hands and minds active. By combining two important STEAM activities; art and building, kids will invent and explore while stretching their attention spans as long and as far as their imaginations can reach.
2. Toyish enables kids to play together.
With Toyish children play collaboratively or independently, they interact and construct creativity and knowledge together. There are endless story lines to develop so they can reinvent and reconfigure as they play.
Toyish encourages parents and kids to spend quality time together
3. Toyish boosts kids' self-confidence.
Hi, I'm Assaf, a toy designer from Brooklyn. I have been inventing toys and teaching Toy Design for the past ten years. Three years ago I was invited to teach at a school in Harlem as part of the CityArts program - that marked the beginning of the Toyish journey.
Working with the kids on toy building and witnessing their level of creativity, really Inspired me. I returned to my studio with a new approach. My focus became on how to recreate that feeling of accomplishment - where each child got the chance to express their uniqueness.
The name of our product is an extension of our philosophy. The product is like a toy, it is toy-ish, It’s isn’t really a toy until a kid brings it to life.
CITYarts engaged Assaf to teach kids how to create their toys, during a CITYarts project at Polo Grounds N.Y.C
Toy cars made by kids at the Harlem workshop
It was an amazing feeling to win the "Best in Play" Award in the New York Toy Fair
Initial sketches of Toyish
Toyish went through many phases of development
Printing the coloring play book pages
Printing the coloring play book pages
Printing the coloring play book pages
Every toy needs some magic! Toyish magnetic characters are the secret ingredient that holds the toys together and adds the magical spark. They are safe for kids as young as three years old.
See under ADD-ONS. This cool accessory ring will allow you to transform every Toyish toy to an AMAZING personalized night lamp.
Simply place the ring on the base and once you insert the character into the capsule....poof...the toy will be magically lit-up. Your kids will love sleeping by their very own light-up creation.
Our stamp bits are compatible with all of our magnetic characters. Simply snap a stamp bit into a character, and you are ready to roll!
Every dancer is a storyteller. They spin so fast, it makes people dizzy.
Every Toyish kit comes with all the necessary parts to start the adventure. With our ever-growing library of parts, kids can collect more awesome accessories to make their toys even cooler.
Race Car Kit:
Helicopter Kit:
Flamenco Dancer Kit:
Ballerina Dancer Kit:
Click N' Stamp Kit:
Each kit contains 2 magnetic characters, three interchangeable stamp bits and one ink pad.
*If you pledged over $25 you can add the Magical LED Light Add On to your pledge. Simply add $15 for each ring to your final pledge amount (It's also possible to add more than one ring). After the campaign ends, we will contact each backer to verify the items pledged for.
*Simply add $30 for any additional toy kit to your final pledge amount. After the campaign ends, we will contact each backer to verify the items pledged for.
We're a team of experienced entrepreneurs, designers and educators who have been working in the toy industry for many years. We teamed up to bring Toyish to kids around the world and inspire a new generation of adults.
Assaf Eshet: An award-winning inventor and design lecturer at NYU. His work is geared towards creating a balance between the playful and the functional. Many of his patented toys are enthusiastically used by children worldwide.
Elisabeth Krisel: Over 25 years of a successful career in the toy business in a range of roles. The most recent being VP Innovation Programs and Inventor Relations and VP of Product Design at Fisher-Price.
Robert Gehorsam: Brings more than 20 years of management experience in the online entertainment, games and media sectors, including: Sony, Scholastic and Institute of Play.
Dr. Kathleen Alfano: An expert in the field of early childhood, child development, play patterns, age grade determinations of toys and children's products, and trends in play and parenting.
Peter Espersen: Marketing strategy specialist. Former Head of Online Communities and Crowd Sourcing for the LEGO Group.