Circa 2002, Ben Hitmar and I began working with the Stikfas team in Singapore. What an amazing group of people.  It was a collaboration that had a huge impact on me, both professionally and personally. Not long after Tuck came on board and the future Xevoz team was set.

At that point, I was a Senior Director of R&D at Hasbro, 9 years into an amazing career. Having worked on everything from Star Wars to Batman to Pokemon, admittedly the ‘mass-market’ way of doing things had steadily crept into my psyche. Nothing bad about it, but mass leads to certain solutions and alternative leads to another set of solutions, primarily because of scale.

Working on Stikfas was a treat, but when we started to create Xevoz (originally called Evo), it was like eating pie for every meal. The original goal was just to be an ‘aged-down’ version of Stikfas. True to its name, it evolved and became something much more, especially to those of us who worked on it. It allowed us to back away from the rigidity of a traditional property. The characters didn’t have a permanent personality or origin or even a name.  They had a ‘job’ and a known place in the zeitgeist, but YOU got to decide what they were really all about.

A conversation during a typical day went something like… Wayne- Okay, we need a new elemental guy. Tuck (or most times Ben)- What about magma? W- That’s cool, we can do some crusty rock texture painted on top of a nice tinted clear. T- What’s his job? W- Tough one… What about something Hawaiian to go with the volcano theme? Surfer? T- Yeah, he can surf the lava flows as they come down the side of the volcano. Maybe he’s like a sacred, carved rock at the very tip of the mountain and as the volcano erupts he comes to life. W- Sweet. He needs some rocky looking Jam’s shorts and maybe a lei for his funny part. T- Sounds good to me! This is abbreviated, but every Xevoz conversation went something like that.  The sky was the limit and our imaginations soared with the opportunity.

Every day was amazing, but the best days were when we got a box of  ‘first shots’ (pilot parts that are the right shapes, but not really tuned-in to fit or function properly) from the factory. You’d have an entire wave of figure parts sitting in front of you.  No paint, just raw potential like a bag of Lego’s with no directions. We’d sit for hours trying parts within each kit first and then trying parts across kits to see what fun we could create. Anyone who has ever sat with a pile of Xevoz parts can attest to the amazing flow state that you enter, propelled by the realization of one small epiphany after another. Giddy comes to mind.

It was in these hands-on sessions that the personality, openness and opportunity of Xevoz started to take shape. A DIY philosophy, born in Stikfas, that fully took hold and developed a life of its own. From the start of the second wave, we talked as much about how new parts could expand upon the total part library. The novel functionality of the parts became a more significant part of defining the play value of each kit. After a while, anyone who wasn’t involved in the day-to-day discussion, lost the reference point for why we were doing some of the things we did. We were in a zone and a bit off the traditional map.

It wasn’t all fun and games. Well, in truth, they were two different things.  On one side was the fun and the other side was developing the game. Its easy to be hard on the game, but it was a different kind of fun. We had some great game designers, Jim and Bill, to help us design the mechanic. It was a really fun game. Applied to a different product, it might still be selling like hotcakes. The only issue is that Xevoz the toy didn’t need it.

Why the game was added is lost to history. Games were very fashionable at the time. I was also working on Beyblade and Pokemon, so I don’t recall fighting the idea much. Hell, I may have suggested it. It was a decision that leeched a lot of our time, messing with part names and stats, creating and checking labels, and rereading instruction sheets over-and-over. We produced some beautiful game boards. In my mind, none of it could compete with the thrill of the build system and the open-source nature of the IP.

What set Xevoz apart, and what people still don’t understand is that it was built on ‘guidelines’ and suggestions, not rules. Who were we to name the characters or tell the stories? That was for the users to do. The characters were all from different, but familiar regions and were members of races that were easy to understand. You almost didn’t have to tell the story, because you already knew it. That ‘open-sourceness’ was completely counter intuitive to everything I had learned (and was radically unlearning) from licensed brands .

All the best things I know to be true about toys, culture and creativity, I learned while I was on Xevoz. Mostly, I was reminded of the stark differences between action figures, characters, and toys. In the figure biz, I think we’ve forgotten that they aren’t all the same thing. But then again, most times you’ve got a huge property to bring those characters to life.

In a world full of other people’s stories, where can we find a simple medium to express those characters and stories that come to life in our own minds? I’ve got a little stash. Best of luck in finding your own.

Here’s a smattering of Xevoz goodness.

Viva La Xevoz!

To me this hits the heart of design, not just sustainability, but the idea of design as a gift to the user. If we’re going to say something, why not adjust the consumer viewpoint before the product is ever bought. This isn’t as easy as saying ‘don’t buy products’, we’re not creating a boycott.  The goal is to up the ante on educating the public to vote with their money on the best products possible. The idea is to bring more knowledge, heart and awareness to conscious consumerism.

I think we can keep the three R’s. Its catchy. No need to recreate the wheel here. But lets get inside and hit the fundamentals. What about….?

RESPECT- Respect the productive energy that it took to create and manufacture a product, not just the BTU’s, but the man hours, the materials, the shipping, and the hidden costs to humanity- pollution, etc. That energy could have been used for something else.  Is this the best possible use of your financial resources and is it’s payoff worthy of the energy it took to produce it and get it into your hands?

REPURPOSE- Meaning is the true basis of value for everything. What is this product/service/experience worth to me? Are there ways to view what you already own as more meaningful? Does that old toaster oven fit better in the space you have on the counter? What would it take to spruce it up a bit? An hour of elbow grease to remove the grime (your grime) that has built up, making it look not quite as new as day one? This may seem trite, but what value can you put on that oven’s ‘years of tireless service’? Is it part of the family? Maybe. Like a horse, does it deserve to go to the glue factory or a chance to live its life in dutiful service?

The idea is that we either extend the life of what has already been produced or give a ‘castaway’ a new chance at life. Upcycling is huge on the craft circuit. Every time I visit the craft fair up the street, I’m compelled to buy a set of drinking glasses made from upcycled soda bottles. These products can now be reused (almost on a daily basis) whereas before they would, at best, end up in the recycling bin.

REFUSE- As a product designer, media creator, and savvy consumer, I’m slowly adjusting the way I value things. I’m becoming more consciously aware of the endless, hollow push, and appeals to my ‘needs’. I want an iPad, but I can live without it. I can opt out of reckless companies trying to indoctrinate me into there product streams and brand promises, instead choosing to spend my money on experiences with friends and family.

Is any of this new? Not really. There are countless people already living this way, but not nearly enough.  I’m not talking about global warming or peak oil or taking back our food system.  My goal is to reboot our relationship to a once-meaningful mantra that has lost (and maybe out-lived) its effectiveness.

As a test of the concept, I’m going to float my 2 cents out into the ether and see what the reaction is.  Maybe someone will stop at a light or check out my t-shirt and it’ll make sense to them. OR… it’ll just be one more statement in a world full of expert opinion.

It comes down to a very simple equation.  What’s the total quality of my life?  Am I getting a good return on my investment or a brief buzz of fleeting gratification?

Little did we know that it would get us listed in the dirty dozen listing on their homepage and the real kicker was making it onto the Best of Zazzle list at Squidoo.

The idea for this shirt has been bouncin’ around my head for a while now. I remember as a kid, my brother got this book of Norse mythology for Christmas, and its colored my image of Thor ever since. In this book Thor was a fiery red head more on par with Bluto than Fabio. Also there was this great bit about how Thor had to wear this special magical mitten on his hand because when his hammer returned it was so burning hot. The best part was the way the illustrator had drawn it in the book it always looked like an oven mitt. Something about having the Norse version of a WMD rollin around in a goat cart with an oven mitt on his hand just cracks me up. You can’t beat Mythology for ‘WTF’ factor.

Anyway, if you get the chance, check out my design on Thread less, and if you feel so moved, join in and vote!

http://threadless.com/submission/251223/What_Would_Thor_Do

We have a huge affinity for the complexity and promise of construction as a play pattern. Working on both Stikfas and Xevoz at Hasbro definitely reignited that flame and allowed us to stretch our wings. Last year, we were contracted for the entire line development (from concept through package art) on Skeleflex for Wild Planet. It was an awesomely fun project and best of all, we got to bring in our good friend Ben Hitmar. It was great to have him on board, even if it was for a few months.

Here’s a link some of that work.

We set this up to create some shirts for us to wear around and bits of client swag. We figured we might as well throw them up and make them available to whomever might want one.

We’ll be shifting this around periodically to keep it fresh. Maybe throwing some other types of products into the mix. Let us know what you think.

If I get a chance, I’ll throw up a few shots of the control art, so we can see the difference.

We’ll be adding some our industry work to the site over the next few months and dropping in a few bits of our own concepts along the way. Definitely stay tuned. Its going to be a blast!