Animoodles can be combined in hundreds of ways thanks to 11 hidden magnets inside each plushie

In my previous posts, I talked about saying Goodbye to Apple and Yahoo and why Stuffed Animals are Everything. To my delight, they got picked up by the Noteworthy blog on Medium.

Animoodles can be taken apart and put back together in hundreds of ways!

As a kid, I always loved arts and crafts, but most of all, sewing. I thought, if only I could make teddy bears for a living, I’d be happy. But I was scared to even try — I thought I would mess up the one thing I loved most.

This teddy bear kit from 1994 inspired young Marissa to make teddy bears

After I spent over a decade working as a designer at places such as Apple and Yahoo, I decided that I finally had the design skills required to make a meaningful attempt at designing the ultimate stuffed animals.

But when I first embarked on my new line called Animoodles, I didn’t know it would take over 2 years from beginning to end. It was extremely hard, so I got help from my friends.

I’ve been fortunate to create Animoodles with professionals from Apple, Disney, Pixar, Mattel, Leapfrog, Procter & Gamble, and NASA.

If in the beginning you told me that I would end up working with people from these top design and product companies, I probably wouldn’t have believed you.

Inventing an entirely new design process

When I came up with the idea for Animoodles, I knew it would be very difficult to create them. There was no precedent for what I wanted to create: magnetic plush with hidden magnets that you can combine into nearly infinite poses and combinations.

I knew how to create classic stuffed animals, which I did with my previous line of stuffed animals called BearBear, many of which I designed and sewed by hand:

For Animoodles, I first started with what I knew how to do because of working on BearBear: create basic stuffed animals using readily available fabrics. BearBear was a baby step towards creating Animoodles.

Below, I’ll talk about the many elements that went into our design process.

Fabrics

Creating stuffed animals requires that you start with the basics: fabrics.

I spent over 6 months purchasing fabrics from the US, China, Japan, Korea, and Europe, and eventually settled on fabrics that came in hundreds of colors and textures. I started to develop a sense for the feel of the fabrics, and how to source them such that our factory could use them in bulk.

Plush Prototyping

After I settled on some designer fabrics, I got to work. I sewed the very first Animoodle prototype by hand in 2015:

It has a cube shaped body!

It’s fully magnetic!

I knew it wasn’t representative of the final product. But from working in design in the tech industry, I’ve learned to show people my work early and often. So I took a big gulp and showed it to some friends for feedback. According to them, it seemed like a positive start. But they thought it should have a stronger personality, and more shapely limbs that look more like the animal it is supposed to represent (a bear).

“Okay, I can work on that,” I thought.

The problem was that I didn’t know any plush prototypers who could create stuffed animals as advanced as the ones that are inspired by the top animation studios.

After 6 months of searching, my life changed: I was connected to a top plush prototyper / seamstress by Jim Whims, co-creator of the original Teddy Ruxpin and Lazer Tag. Our plush prototyper previously worked with Disney, NBC Universal, Warner Brothers, Jim Henson, Fisher Price, and many others for over 3 decades. She had been trusted with translating the most famous and beloved cartoon characters into the stuffed animal form factor for her whole career.

There was only one problem: we first needed characters for her to turn into plush.

Characters

From the beginning, I wanted to create compelling characters that people could fall in love with.

Who better to work with than a Character Designer from the world’s top animation studio? Fortunately, I met Dan Holland and he didn’t laugh at my glued-together prototype. In fact, he found the challenge interesting. I told him:

“Instead of creating characters meant for the animated movie screen, we can create characters that are optimized to be the cutest stuffed animals possible.”

We first had to decide on the level of complexity of the characters we wanted to create:

Since every Animoodle can both sit and stand thanks to an extra magnet on their backs, we had to get Animoodles to look good in both positions. This was a key benefit and differentiator of Animoodles, but it was very hard! Here’s what we came up with:

We also had to make sure that the magnet attachment points on each Animoodle body looked right and had a smooth fit:

In addition to making each Animoodle appealing on its own, we had to make sure every Animoodle body part looked good when combined with parts from other characters:

Story

While we started thinking about character design, we simultaneously thought deeply about story.

We don’t just want to create compelling toys, but also characters and a story world that kids can believe in. Story is the essential foundation of the emotional appeal of the Animoodles.

Just like with web and mobile design, I’m self-taught in story and art. In order to learn the story and character design process used for animated movies and video games, I took four courses from CalArts (the university started by the Walt Disney family that John Lasseter graduated from) and read many books by my favorite artists and writers.

Before we design each Animoodles character, I come up with a 5–15 page character description. Here’s the summary for Randy Orangutan, for example:

We also collaborated with story writers who formerly worked at Disney and Pixar to help us think about the universe the Animoodles live in. We came up with many story ideas, tested the finalists with kids around the country, and settled on the story that we launched with:

Animoodles storybook cover by Nak Yong Choi, former Director and Story Artist at Disney

The story is an epic adventure that is map-based: The Animoodles are adventurers who go on a journey to return the lost Iris Unicorn back to the mystical Isle of Mythos. They discover new lands and new Animoodles along the way — which you will learn about in future Animoodles collections.

The story is inspired by our love of maps, such as what JRR Tolkien and George RR Martin use to tell the stories of Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and Game of Thrones.

Here’s a taste of the maps we have designed to help illustrate the story:

Iris Unicorn is from the Isle of Mythos

Iris Unicorn one day falls into the Wild Jungle, where she meets new Animoodles friends!

You can read more about the story of the Animoodles on our Kickstarter page.

Industrial Design

From making the very first Animoodle prototype, I quickly learned that I needed to figure out how to insert magnets inside Animoodles. People told me that the special aspect of Animoodles should be that the magnets are hidden, and that the parts can come apart and be put back together like magic.

I spent a few months testing out dozens of types and strengths of magnets:

Then I designed and 3d printed some CAD models of magnet holders:

However, these weren’t a fit for what we needed with Animoodles: an efficient design that holds magnets safely inside of the plush, that has the right magnet strength, and that does not waste any materials.

That’s when we enlisted the help of a few of our friends who used to be engineers at NASA, Apple, and Tesla. Rocket scientists worked on the magnet mechanism inside of Animoodles!

Eventually, we came up with a solution that made for the best magnet enclosure for Animoodles:

Putting it all together

Now that we had the Animoodles characters designed, the story ironed out, and the magnet mechanism figured out, it was time for our plush prototyper to turn the character drawings into actual stuffed animals.

I learned about the many constraints that fabric demands: certain fabrics can only fold in certain ways or can only be sewn so small. Only certain angles and shapes can be rendered in fur.

After many long hours, and iteration on fabrics, proportions, and magnets, we created the first five Animoodles: Randy Orangutan, Hazel Sloth, Miguel Frog, Brady Lion, and Iris Unicorn.

Some of our prototypes are shown here:

A look at some of the creative combinations of Animoodles:

Packaging design

Before Animoodles, I had never before designed packaging. So I did what I usually do: I studied up on it. I spent over 100 hours in toy stores, studying what worked and what didn’t. We came up with over 100 ideas for packaging, such as these:

Small selection of the creative package ideas we came up with

Then, I created dozens of packaging prototypes using an X-acto knife.

A few of the dozens of packaging prototypes made by Marissa

After I had a better idea of the shape of the box we wanted to go with, I worked with a graphic artist who formerly worked at Pixar to create Animoodles packaging, over the course of a few months.

Here’s what we designed together:

But do kids love it?

After working in web and mobile design, I learned the importance of user testing. Every step of the way, we play tested Animoodles with real kids, in 5 major cities around the US.

We are proud to say that Animoodles are kid-powered.

Kids helped us decide the product name of Animoodles, character names, which Animoodles to launch with (Randy Orangutan, Hazel Sloth, Miguel Frog, Brady Lion, and Iris Unicorn), and which story idea to launch with. It was kids who asked for each Animoodle to come inside its very own habitat-themed box (“so they can go to sleep at night”).

Most importantly, kids helped us validate the Animoodles product idea in the first place: their reactions of surprise and joy when they first discover that Animoodles aren’t ordinary stuffed animals, but that each of their parts comes off, is so touching.

They laugh, they giggle, and they create their own stories with Animoodles.

This is exactly the reaction I wanted to see when I first set out creating Animoodles!

Inspiring joy and creativity in kids is priceless and makes all the effort worth it.

My biggest takeaway from our intense design process is that you can learn just about any subject if you’re motivated to. In order to create Animoodles, I learned character design, story writing, industrial design, mechanical engineering, package design, and plush prototyping over the course of 4 years. The result is that we have a well-informed design process where I know just enough about each element to provide feedback and direction to my company’s many creative functions. I’m honored to serve as my team’s conductor.

If you enjoyed reading about our design process and like Animoodles, you can get your own Animoodles on Kickstarter for a limited time.

What are the values that are foundational to the Animoodles brand, team, and culture? Find out our “why” in my next post.

With all my love,

Marissa Louie, Co-Creator & Chief Designer of Animoodles

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