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Give this company a child's drawing and they'll make it into a stuffed toy

childsown.com

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Re: Give this company a child's drawing and they'll make it into a stuffed toy

#51

Post by rprime »

Murkin wrote: post #29
plainOldText wrote: post #12

This is a cute idea. I'm wondering if they make any money since on their website it says: "Child's Own Studio has custom made over 200 personal softies". I'm thinking whether a redesign of their website and a more aggressive Facebook campaign (they only have 1000+ fans) would help them sell more. It probably would. No. It definitely would. They could also have a checkbox on the order form to allow other people to ord…

Very cute idea, but at 100$ a toy (thats what the giftcard is worth), this is not for the mass market. Tho if you are willing to take it down a notch (or two) on quality, china can probably produce them at >10$

From what I understood from the other comments (site is not working), everything is custom made, unique and handled by one single person, that explains the price, and honestly, it seems okay.

If you outsource to China, you take all those Pros away and the product will turn into another toy factory.

Re: Give this company a child's drawing and they'll make it into a stuffed toy

#52

Post by rprime »

ck2 wrote: post #3

It's a fantastic idea - but I would point out what a child sees in their head vs their drawing capabilities are probably very different. Still, I guess they could recognize it as something they created and it might encourage them to keep being creative?

I am thinking more of a "turning it into reality" type of concept. Learning kids that they can turn an idea into something (tangible?) might be a valuable lesson.

Re: Give this company a child's drawing and they'll make it into a stuffed toy

#53

Post by cookiecaper »

latch wrote: post #7

My question would be: assuming you want to, how do you scale it? There's such an individual toy-by-toy creative aspect to it. Also, the potential for building brands seems pretty spectacular. Stuffed toy is just one step, you could add stories, games, episodes...this could be to disney what 99designs is to graphic designers :)

The only way to "scale" is to form a company of similarly-skilled artists. Even if this happens, it is unlikely that they'd ever be able to keep up with demand.

It's obviously not something you can send off to China and press the button on an assembly line. Some things just can't be mass produced, and we should be grateful for that.

Re: Give this company a child's drawing and they'll make it into a stuffed toy

#54

Post by Splines »

mbreese wrote: post #6
ck2 wrote: post #3

It's a fantastic idea - but I would point out what a child sees in their head vs their drawing capabilities are probably very different. Still, I guess they could recognize it as something they created and it might encourage them to keep being creative?

Well, if they draw something and declare "That's my friend Foo!". If you show up with a stuffed version of their drawing, they are likely to recognize that as "Foo". Kids have a way of not letting their lack of drawing skill or details get in the way of a good story. Plus, I doubt they could turn a 3 year old's drawings into something. My kid's drawings aren't that recognizable yet... (just lines and squiggles)

Sometimes they can surprise you: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3109213/sfb.jpg

My daughter was almost 3 when she drew this. Most of her stuff doesn't come out like this, but I saved this one since it was weirdly real.

Re: Give this company a child's drawing and they'll make it into a stuffed toy

#55

Post by eru »

rprime wrote: post #51
Murkin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very cute idea, but at 100$ a toy (thats what the giftcard is worth), this is not for the mass market. Tho if you are willing to take it down a notch (or two) on quality, china can probably produce them at >10$

From what I understood from the other comments (site is not working), everything is custom made, unique and handled by one single person, that explains the price, and honestly, it seems okay. If you outsource to China, you take all those Pros away and the product will turn into another toy factory.

100 USD is actually pretty cheap for a custom made toy.

Re: Give this company a child's drawing and they'll make it into a stuffed toy

#56

Post by VBprogrammer »

BlazingFrog wrote: post #50

HN killed her business (if only temporarily): Bandwidth Limit Exceeded The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

I've just emailed the email from the contact page, have a VPS which is doing nothing. I would be happy to help her get her website up and running again.

Also, noticed this was posted on Reddit and a few other places so its probably being hammered.

Re: Give this company a child's drawing and they'll make it into a stuffed toy

#57

Post by thret »

BlazingFrog wrote: post #50

HN killed her business (if only temporarily): Bandwidth Limit Exceeded The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

HN does this frequently. We are Anon, we take down obscure but interesting blogs and small companies.

Re: Give this company a child's drawing and they'll make it into a stuffed toy

#58

Post by rhplus »

BlazingFrog wrote: post #50

HN killed her business (if only temporarily): Bandwidth Limit Exceeded The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

The blog is still up, and has some great stories:

http://childsownstudio.blogspot.com/

Re: Give this company a child's drawing and they'll make it into a stuffed toy

#59

Post by noduerme »

Her work's amazing. She's taking the intent and smoothing out the rough edges, filling in the undefined aspects. I've worked with a few really great illustrators and designers as either a designer or an art director. I can't name more than three in the last ten years, and all have been women. She has the rare quality they have of being able inernalize an original vision that's not their own, immediately and viscerally grasp the ineffable qualities that give it its unique personality, and turn it into a final product that looks polished while communicating exactly what the original artist intended. And reading her blog, it's obvious how she does it. She TALKS to the people who she's doing the work for. So how exactly would this scale without losing quality? Clone her? This takes patience, communications, personal integrity and a huge amount of skill and vision. I think it's the most impressive piece of work I've seen on HN this year. There's no reason at all to look at it through the narrow filter of what you'd do if it were an IT startup. It's just awesome for what it is.

Re: Give this company a child's drawing and they'll make it into a stuffed toy

#60

Post by noduerme »

eru wrote: post #55
rprime wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understood from the other comments (site is not working), everything is custom made, unique and handled by one single person, that explains the price, and honestly, it seems okay. If you outsource to China, you take all those Pros away and the product will turn into another toy factory.

100 USD is actually pretty cheap for a custom made toy.

Agreed. It's dirt cheap. I know dozens of parents who would pay five times that.
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