Project: The Faery Folk® Collectible Dolls and Story Booklets

Role: Creative Director/Producer

Dervish Media designed, developed and manufactured a line of six collectible dolls to support a self-created children’s media property. The dolls were based on our designs and required that we learn the entire process of creating a physical product.

Each doll comes with a story book to reveal the world of our faeries and engage the child in a larger world. We studied how boutique toy stores and large “box-top” retailers displayed their goods- how high on a shelf, how many to a shelf, free standing or on hooks- so we could best determine how to distinguish our product. We studied package design and what we viewed as successful applications of various materials.

Once our designs were completed, we created prototypes that could be priced by various Chinese manufacturers. I took two trips to China to both find the proper factory and oversee the production line.

Each doll is approximately six inches tall and is based on a unique story character we imagined and developed.		Five doll characters are made from a poly-resin with cloth, while the sixth is a plush dragon.
Ting, the delicate Deva represents one of our product goals: cultural diversity.		It is said that package design is 90% of the reason consumers make a purchase. We studied how we wanted our product to be experienced from eight feet away; during up close examination; and finally, in a child’s grasp.
Each doll comes with a story book that describes the world of the Faery Folk; relates a story about that character; and even provides a craft project the child can create from found objects with their parent.		Once our designs were completed, we created prototypes that could be priced by various Chinese manufacturers. I took two trips to China to both find the proper factory and then to oversee the production line.
We created a manufacturing extranet where we could exchange images and production notes with the factory. We were sorely tested as the cultural and language barriers created curious interpretations of our designs.		Did we succeed? The smiles on the faces of each child from our user testing sessions proved we had…

Conclusion: The dolls are currently selling in over 65 boutique retailers across the U.S. and Canada. We continue to have online sales through our partnership with Amazon.com. Amazon asked Dervish Toys to be its first toy retailer in a beta program that has now been rolled out nationally.