The Collector:  Graham Powell , course director of MA Product Design at the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design (UK)

The Collection: Contemporary plastic wind up toys.

The story behind the collection...

Another teaching aid collection of mine that appears to have got out of control. I’ve been collecting wind up toys for about 5 years now and to date have amassed nearly 100.

During a Product Analysis class, we all choose a toy, wind them up to the max (which isn’t always advisable) and let them loose on our big studio table. Some toys are all about speed, other sloth, some can do highly impressive summersaults, whilst others do funny sideways walks. The racing grannies with zimmer frames always get lots of laughs, whilst the dancing robot with his mechanical ‘clunky-ness’ mimics the universal embarrassing uncle shaking his booty at a wedding! After all the fun and laughs, students are then asked to produce beautiful hand drawings of their chosen toy and attempt to guess (through drawing) what the mechanism inside might be that created the entertaining action(s). In the serious world of product design, where designers wrestle with endless ‘problem solving’ agendas, toys are a great reminder of how functionality and fun have long co-existed together. Toys also represent a highly creative genre... as kids will always demand novelty and laughs to feed their imaginations!

The initial premise for starting this collection was to reconnect with our former selves as children and have some fun whilst learning. The wind up toys are great for illustrating how many different (and entertaining) mechanical outputs can be derived from the same starting point of an initial unwinding coil spring mechanism. They are incredibly well thought out little product designs that have to balance affordability with ease of manufacture and of course compete with each other for attention and entertainment value. Essentially they are 'old school' mechanical designs wrapped up in a modern plastic package. It’s also an opportunity to show how even the simplest looking products are far from simple when you start to weigh up all their conflicting design issues. Creativity and ingenuity are close bed-fellows in the world of product design.

To my mind, too much of contemporary teaching has become over reliant on the computer as the primary designing tool, resulting in the endless presentation of the ‘same’ things. Whilst obviously indispensible, computers can also have associated drawbacks when it comes to creative thinking and innovating. The detachment with reality that they inevitably encourage can be detrimental to risk taking and experimentation, with the net result often being that students prefer to sit at their laptops ‘designing’ rather than getting their hands ‘dirty’ in the workshops. In effect, by doing this, they are missing half of the design process (and half the fun too). Many design developments can come from random chance insights gleaned during the prototyping and making phases. When it comes to three dimensional design then doing is just as important as thinking and understanding materials and processes just as important as visualisation. It’s a highly complex design process that ultimately requires a mindset that can ‘jump’ about from one focus to another. It’s also highly rewarding to finally see the fruits of your labour being endorsed, invested in and produced for an expectant marketplace. So having some fun analysing the complexities of these toys is a great reminder of some of these key basics.

Most of the wind up toys are made of ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) plastic, often with steel pins for hinge points and axles. Made in China they typically cost only a few pounds each. I suppose my favourites are probably the over ‘friendly’ couple in the tent and the set of exercising girls, as they continue to make me smile every time I wind them up. The somersaulting pink deranged rabbit is truly amazing to watch… and too ponder what’s inside it too.

Link to the MA Product Design course at BIAD here.

Graham’s other (documentary) collection featured on Obsessionistas is #0001 Ice Creams.

Images © Graham Powell (of Obsessionistas)