Award-winning inventor, artist and engineer David Yakos will share a behind-the-scenes look at how toy and game ideas are discovered, developed, refined and pitched at this year’s Play Creators Conference.

Through examples of inspiration, creativity, prototypes, sell sheets and real-world imagination strategy, David will help designers better understand what it takes to turn a spark of an idea into an industry-ready product.

David has licensed more than 180 inventions across toys, games, consumer products, NASA and industrial technology. A two-time Toy-Innovator-of-the-Year and 2024 Game-Designer-of-the-Year winner, he brings a rare mix of creativity, engineering and real-world pitching experience to the invention process.

This year’s Play Creators Conference is taking place at London’s Stamford Bridge Stadium on Wednesday, June 24th. To book your ticket, head to: https://playcreatorsconference.co.uk/product/play-creators-conference-ticket/

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With 2025 in full swing, design and invention figures discuss the exciting opportunities and tricky troubles ahead…

Adam Carson,
Director of Product Innovation, Fat Brain Toys

This year, Fat Brain has a great opportunity to reach new customers through a range of exciting product launches in fresh categories. We hope these new items will help us connect with a broader audience and tap into customers’ ever-evolving interests.

It’s been a fun process to explore different perspectives and showcase the range of our creative abilities. This also opens up opportunities for inventors. By looking further into other categories of play, we can work with inventors to explore many more toy and game concepts.

One of the industry’s biggest challenges will likely be balancing kids’ growing interest in digital entertainment with hands-on play. As screen time rises, the effort to get kids to engage in physical product only increases. To keep up, toy companies will need to get creative to make physical toys just as engaging as digital experiences.

Richard North,
President, Wow! Stuff

The biggest challenge will be tariffs imposed on companies selling Chinese or far east products to the US. The biggest opportunity? Offshoring elsewhere to avoid the possible tariffs and doing it ahead of your competition.

Adam Hocherman,
Co-Founder, Wayfarer Games

2025 must become the year of the ‘big swing’. It’s perhaps unsurprising that I write this tired analogy in the midst of the 2024 World Series in the United States. Major League Baseball, like the toy industry, has faced headwinds in recent years – and for many of the same reasons…

Baseball is a deliberate game that rewards the patient. That does not describe the demeanour of today’s young fans, who are looking for quick adrenaline hits and instant gratification. Interest in faster sports has encroached on baseball’s popularity… So too has a propensity for ‘newness’ encroached on what used to be a more patient – read, ‘evergreen’ – toy industry. This makes an inventor’s life much more difficult. So difficult that inventors, brand managers and others are reluctantly taking roles in other industries altogether.

Meanwhile, mass retailers increasingly look to move games in and out, year-by-year, as a matter of corporate strategy. On top of this, some major players are quite publicly ‘doubling down’ on a digital strategy: effectively an admission of defeat at the sword of the screen. As a result, great toy inventors are struggling to find footing… For many, the economics simply aren’t adding up – and therein lies the greatest challenge. Which brings me back to the greatest opportunity…

Many major publishers have eschewed the risks associated with ‘big swings’ due to reasons that are not unjustified from where they stand. But time is running out and perhaps that big swing – while still risky – is suddenly looking like a better strategy given the alternatives. This opens up opportunities for toy inventions – some of which I’ve even had to pass on myself – that may not have been feasible two years ago but are, or simply must be, today. Let’s Freddie Freeman-it!

Fi Murray,
Innovation Director, Making Things Studio

The toy industry has faced a series of complex challenges over the past five years, creating ripple effects across every layer of the chain. But challenges fuel opportunities… For 2025, our studio is focusing on diversifying how we bring concepts to market, forging new partnerships, flexin’ within the traditional inventor model and doubling down on strong performing categories, like developmental play for little ones. We’re also working on 360-degree IP that spans toy, print and digital realms.

One major industry trend is the growth of the second-hand toy market, especially for items aimed at children over three – and all the way up to adult collectors. Families increasingly see second-hand purchases as a sustainable and a budget-friendly choice…

The reason that platforms like Vinted are thriving is because pre-owned toys still deliver the thrill of novelty for kids, while satisfying parents’ sustainability goals and saving pennies against reduced incomes. These platforms are a testament to changing consumer habits – and a compelling case for manufacturers to adapt. Nearly 60% of toys for my kid this past Christmas were pre-loved from Vinted and Facebook Marketplace.

Imagine, then, if manufacturers could capture revenue from every resale within a product’s lifecycle – not just the original sale. Some companies are already experimenting with this through take-back schemes and various partnerships. By offering trade-in or resale options on their own sites – or collaborating with established second-hand platforms – manufacturers could foster new revenue streams, attract new customer demographics, and reinforce eco-friendly values.

Fashion has similar high volume, low value products. Zara, for example, has pioneered a model where customers can resell purchased clothing back to them. Zara then resells these to new customers at a discounted rate. This approach could create similar opportunities in toys, where manufacturers benefit at every stage – and consumers enjoy an ever-expanding choice of sustainable options. Toys are more complex in regard to QA, so it wouldn’t be as simple… But hey! What’s one more challenge to troubleshoot?!

Lisa Guili,
Vice President & General Manager, Educational Insights

Social commerce has started to gain serious traction in the US, and we’re expecting its growth to continue to fuel our own businesses in 2025. The exciting part is that while much of today’s social commerce is influenced by entertainment platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, the POS impact is evident across all forms of shopping – including physical retail.

Even more encouraging is that viral content can be, and is being, shared by creators with all levels of followings. This means consumers have more power than ever to drive what becomes a top-selling toy or game. This accessibility is opening opportunities for small and medium-sized brands to broaden their reach quickly and efficiently.

The surge in entertaining content has also contributed to expanding the ever-present kidult trend. For instance, adult couples creating content of themselves playing all types of games has grown significantly in the past year. It has made it permissible – dare I say ‘cool’ – for adults of all ages to engage in quirky, hilarious play as a pastime. At Educational Insights, we refer to this phenomenon as ‘coupletainment’.

The outcome, besides driving consumer awareness through engaging content, is an emergence of ‘age neutrality’ in the toy and game space. Age neutrality allows all ages to embrace toys and games. It’s so prevalent that I even saw a recent post from a specialty toy store owner about a preschool-aged toy that’s been in high demand for kids of all ages – including teenagers.

Virality is fleeting. To fully leverage all the opportunities that social commerce is creating, businesses need to strategically plan how to nimbly navigate viral moments and build them into long-term growth occasions for their products and brands.

David Snow,
Owner, The Fantastic Factory

All I can say with 100% certainty is that there will be some challenges and there will be some opportunities… Good luck everyone! If you made it through 2024 you are winning, big congrats. 2025 is going to be one hell of a ride… War, tariffs, inflation, interest rates, declining birth-rates, empty retail stores, Web3, internet, social media, space travel, container prices. That said, I know we will still make games that could be the opportunity you’re looking for in 2025.

David Yakos,
Co-Founder, Streamline Design & Salient Technologies

One of the biggest opportunities has to do with one of the bigger challenges we face as toy and game developers – and parents… Digital displacement and screen fatigue. Digital innovation offers major opportunities, but it also poses a large challenge to traditional human interaction and the toy and game industry.

Screen-based entertainment keeps vying for kids’ attention with dopamine boosts every 10 seconds, making it tougher for physical toys to stay engaging. Screens have become a pacifier, stifling active and imaginative play. Parents, if not oblivious, feel guilty over the excess amount of screen time. This imbalance has put pressure on toy companies to strike a balance between digital integration and encouraging physical imaginative play.

To stay competitive for kids’ attention, companies must either incorporate digital and tech features in a way that enhances physical toys to make play more interactive and magical – or embrace a low-tech approach that delivers highly engaging, hands-on experiences through human interaction.

Ben Dermer,
SVP of Toy Innovation, Spin Master

A recent challenge is aligning the inventor community to work earlier in the year. Current US shipping dates mean we start looking at concepts – and making decisions – earlier than ever, while the inventing world is to some extent still stuck in an older timeline. In truth, we look at more product concepts in the summer and early fall than any other time…

That means we’re pretty well into development by the time the winter toy shows come along. We’re obviously excited to see great new ideas at any time – and will jump on a great opportunity. When it comes to putting the line together, though, it’s a challenge to synchronise development timelines. Summer’s now the high time.

It’s also worth noting that, because most ‘big’ companies rarely do totally new brand launches, it’s understandably challenging to get inventors to invest heavily in ‘new’ versus – say – brand-focused development. While many big toy companies tend to focus almost exclusively on existing brands, the world loves new stuff more than ever – and the industry needs it. We need the next Super Soaker, Furby, L.O.L. and Hatchimals… We need the next big thing. It’s a hard target, but if you hit it big with ‘new’, it’s the biggest opportunity there is.

Compounding this challenge is the fact that the bar keeps getting higher when it comes to delivering ‘wow’. Kids and parents have seen mechanisms, motors, lights and sound, colour change, glow-in-the-dark and a hundred ‘reveals’. The industry needs new materials, chemistries, technologies, stories. And ways to deliver magic… But new materials are often hard to work with, unproven or difficult to manufacture. These days, the truth is that there are fewer disruptive advancements in physics and material sciences than in past decades.

Felipe Noriega,
VP & Regional Director EMEA, YuMe Toys

The biggest opportunity remains the kidult space. The market has embraced it and conversations with buyers are much easier. There’s a lot less education to be done. The biggest challenge is the fact it’s such a saturated market. It’s very hard to cut through. There’s so much product, so many licenses, loads of content.. It’s tough to stand out.

Matt Fantastic,
Creative Director, Forever Stoked Creative

The biggest opportunity I’m seeing is in non-traditional media tie-ins and collaborations. Traditional IP use has been a core part of the industry basically forever, and that’s not going away… But with the continued rise of platforms like TikTok – and the massive reach of non-traditional content creators – we’re going to see more projects that look to connect with audiences through partnerships with these creators. The old ways will still be there – but expect to see more official collaborations with YouTubers you’ve never heard of!

With games specifically, I also see a real hunger for new ideas and different takes on what a game can be. The massive influx of new adult gamers that occurred during and post quarantine are reaching a point in their fandom where they’ve worked their way through the classics and are looking for something different. We’ll see a lot more niche and higher concept hobby games hitting mass-market success.

The flip side of that hunger for novelty is that consumers are also hitting a point in their fandom where they’re starting to have full shelves, with unplayed games stacking up. This makes it harder than ever to get them to buy whatever new thing you’re putting out. At this point, the canon of modern classics is massive and offers a lifetime of amazing game experiences already… Getting attention and traction is harder than ever and will only get worse.

Josh West,
Head of Product Design & Inventor Relations, Ravensburger North America

The biggest opportunities will be in products that deliver a fun, simple, accessible experience. Products that consumers see and instantly understand that they can bring home – without breaking the budget – open and get straight to having fun with family and friends.

It’s a wonderful thing to innovate, but innovation brings challenges… If you’ve created something new, it comes with a proportional amount of teaching… How does someone use this new concept, and why would someone want to? There’s always opportunity there, but I think that we’re going to see an increased desire from consumers for familiarity – a shift towards ‘comfort buying’. Companies and inventors that can bring products that a purchaser will recognise – meaning both to understand and to have some measure of previous experience with – and that are budget-friendly will be very successful in 2025.

I think the year ahead will bring some uncertainty. The biggest challenge will be to create these same familiar, fun products, keep them at a low price point – and make them stand out. Those three elements are each difficult by themselves, but success in the coming market will rely on all three. Producing abroad will have some new difficulties, and that will really test our ability to control price points. Our industry’s ability to be creative and come up with fun ideas and how to promote them will be tried as well.

The good news is that I really believe people are going to want to be together more – to periodically disconnect from distraction and connect with each other. Anything that we can do as playmakers to meet people where they are and facilitate those connections will be good for everyone.

Dougal Grimes,
Founder, EightyTwo

In the evolving games market, there has been a notable shift toward card-based games and lower price-point offerings, alongside a significant increase in direct-to-consumer and e-commerce purchases. This shift has lowered the barriers to entry, fostering an exciting landscape for creativity and diversity among new creators and game concepts. However, this environment has also intensified competition for companies and inventors alike.

With easier access to information on current trends, licenses and themes, many innovators are exploring similar territories, leading to a crowded market space. In this landscape, social media and influencer marketing have become the dominant channels for driving consumer engagement. For companies and inventors to stand out, they must focus on creating unique, ‘ownable’ elements within their games – or innovating creatively with brand licenses.

A distinctive visual or interactive hook remains a powerful tool across all consumer products, particularly in the attention-driven world of social media. To capture interest and generate buzz, inventors and companies must integrate inventive, cost-effective features into their games – even for simple card games – that make an impact and have the potential to transform a game into an iconic, must-have experience.

I would be remiss not to mention the transformative impact of AI on both the development and marketing processes, which may require a more extensive article! A wide array of applications now specialise in generating copy, images and video content. This provides creators – who may not have previously had access to these skills – the tools to bring their ideas to life.

This shift has effectively ‘raised the floor’, creating a more inclusive landscape where accessibility and diversity of thought are amplified in the innovation process. The democratisation of these creative tools is paving the way for fresh voices and ideas, further enriching the development of new products and marketing strategies.

Sara Farber,
Co-Founder, Galactic Sneeze

A few weeks ago, I found myself staring at the seemingly never-ending wall of games at Target. Many appeared to have similar mechanics, themes or names, which made me wonder how someone popping in quickly to grab a game would know which to choose. From my perspective, the market seems to be more saturated than ever before. The good news is that games – and party games in particular – are clearly a well-performing category to warrant so much real estate in a big-box store. But the huge selection seemed overwhelming to me from a consumer standpoint – and daunting from an inventor standpoint. Given this sea of products, I think the biggest challenge in 2025 will be to create games that truly stand out on shelf or in amazon searches.

This challenge is potentially also a great opportunity for inventors. As a shopper, if your eyes land on a product that taps into a current trend, theme or IP you’re passionate about, you’re one step closer to stopping and taking a closer look. And as game designers, we’ll need to figure out what those new trends, themes or IPs are – and harness them in a fresh way.

One interesting approach may be to lean into unexpected collaborations. Who would have predicted that in 2024, Michael Cera x CeraVe, or Snoop Dogg x The Olympics would be such huge sensations?! Like PUMA x Cheetos, I think there’s an opportunity for surprising mash-ups in the game aisle. And along with this, comes the potential for reaching new or niche audiences that may currently be overlooked. See you on the shelves!

Danny Kishon,
MD, All in 1 Products

The biggest challenge for companies this year will be the economy. 2024 has been a very tough year at retail all around the world. If you extract LEGO’s growth from any of the published numbers in virtually any country, you’ll see significant double-digit declines. Add the fact that ‘close out’ is included in the numbers and it’s really not a very pretty picture.

Also, Temu, amazon marketplace and other unregulated Chinese online shops selling direct to the consumer at very low prices is a growing issue and likely to get worse in a difficult economy. Freight – both in terms of massively increased cost and delivery times – created problems in 2024 and will likely do so again this year. These affect both prices and managing inventory as forecasting needs to move so much further forward… And Trump’s tariffs are likely to affect US companies and those selling into the USA.

This also impacts inventors… When a market is not doing well, there is often less of an appetite for investment in innovation. Companies become more risk averse, making it harder to place products. Overcoming this might involve investing in taking the project further down the road in terms of development – which is an additional risk as well as a challenge, and a challenge to cashflow. In essence, the challenge for inventors is to figure out where and what to invest time and effort into, in a marketplace where placing product is harder and tougher.

When it comes to opportunities for companies, the good news is that in a difficult retail marketplace, there is a real chance to change your market share. Having a hit when things are generally slow can get you leapt on by retail and see your numbers soar. Other opportunities lie in growing sales via direct-to-consumer sales and marketing-led online retailers like the US version of TikTok Shop, where influencers earn a commission on sales they promote.

For inventors, think kidult. It’s where the market is expanding and so far, has been led by nostalgia rather than innovation. And look at the categories that had bad results in 2024… Those companies – rather than the ones already doing well – may be the ones looking for inspiration and innovation. Team up with an influencer and add a marketing angle to your innovation. Team up with a ‘Product Doctor’ and get focus and help with what to spend time and effort on – and how.

Joost Poulus,
Chief Product Officer, Moose Toys

Every year, the biggest opportunity for us is to continue to raise the bar of what’s possible in toys! At Moose, we have an insatiable appetite for innovation and uncovering untapped areas of play. This means that we’re looking to our internal R&D teams and external inventors to create something new and unexpected that will wow our customers, retailers and partners around the world.

The biggest challenge facing the industry in 2025 is most likely something that none of us are aware of yet. Over the past five years, apart from the standard challenges a toy company faces, there has been many unexpected obstacles we’ve had to face. Obviously Covid was something that challenged us all as the world seemingly changed overnight – however it finessed our ability to pivot quickly so we’re well prepared for what may be around the corner next. From a play point of view, our greatest opportunity – continuing to innovate – is also our biggest challenge, as we find new and exciting ways to captivate and delight the attention of our customers.

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David, it’s always great to catch up. You have a fun new game out with Hasbro – Battleship Royale. Talk us through how it plays?
Battleship Royale is an exciting twist on the classic game of Battleship, designed for a social and interactive gaming experience. In the original, you play only two players – and the way they play is what I call “together-apart”.

“Together-apart”?
What I mean by that is even though you are playing a game ‘together’, you are hidden behind screens, don’t even have to make eye contact and have limited social interaction… Hence ‘apart’… It’s like hanging out with your wife on the couch, sending each other Instagram videos!

It’s the perfect term for that kind of game. I want it to catch on! But yes, the original Battleship does fall into the ‘Together-apart’ trap, so you wanted to change that?
Yes! In Battleship Royale you can now play up to six players all together in one battle royale. Each player takes on the role of a naval commander. They draw a few cards with pre-determined ships and locations on them, select the ships they want and place them in their card holder keeping them hidden. If your ship gets hit, you mark it on the card holder with a peg similar to the original.

One big change is that instead of each individual placing ships and marking shots behind traditional grid blinds, we’ve introduced one large body of water in the centre of the table where everyone bombs each other! You can even have submarines below another ship allowing for double hits if you guess the correct spot. The pacing is much quicker than the original, allowing for multiple rounds of party fun. It’s a total free-for-all… But there can only be one winner!

Sound like a lot of fun. Did this idea stem from wanting to bring something new to Battleship? Or did the Battleship connection come later?
The concept for Battleship Royale was indeed born from a desire to breathe new life into a classic and into one of my childhood favourites. Battleship never seemed to make an appearance during family game night, being only a two-player game. I wanted to accommodate more players and introduce a level of social interaction and strategy that wasn’t present in the original.

It truly makes it into a party game now. Hasbro has done a killer job with the production design and I’m also very pleased they launched it being more environmentally conscious with “Plastic-Free Packaging”!

Absolutely – kudos to the team! Now, I can’t imagine revamping a classic is easy, so what was the biggest challenge in developing Battleship Royale?
One of the biggest challenges was finding the right balance between strategy and accessibility. We needed to ensure that the game remained true to the brand, while being fun and engaging for both seasoned board gamers and newcomers.

To overcome this, we conducted extensive playtesting and iterated on the game mechanics until we achieved that sweet spot where everyone would enjoy it – while still providing depth for strategy enthusiasts. Hasbro did an amazing job with our concept and now it’s making a regular appearance for family game night.

At the end of the day, fun was the most important factor. For instance, one new rule allows players with a submarine to scan a row or column once in a game to get the general location of an opponent. Everyone that has a ship in the called-out row or column needs to respond with a sonar-like “PING”!

Nice! Is there anything about the original Battleship that makes it ripe for these kinds of playful evolutions? Why is it a rich sandbox for inventors to play in?
Some of the desired play patterns have shifted for players today. Today, people don’t seem to want the commitment of a long set-up game. Anytime you can shorten or remove the mundane aspects of a game you make it more relevant for today.

The original Battleship’s simplicity and core concept of hidden ships and strategic guessing made it an excellent foundation for playful evolutions. Its familiarity among a wide audience provided a comfortable starting point. Inventors can build upon the framework, while preserving the nostalgic and competitive aspects that people love about a classic game.

Looking at how you approach invention, do you often look to innovate around existing brands?
Even though this is a super fun exercise, I typically don’t try to just innovate existing brands. I normally like to create entirely new toys or games. Trying to reinvent a classic is one of the more difficult sandboxes to play in…

Games that aren’t tied into one historical intellectual property or company can be pitched to multiple brands and companies – and stand a much better chance at being licensed. When the idea is narrowed down to only one known game, if it doesn’t work for that one company during the one pitch, it likely sinks right there. It is fun to do though, and I feel very fortunate that this one worked.

Away from Battleship Royale, are there any other recent launches from you and your team that we should check out?
Yes, absolutely! Our team has been hard at work on several exciting projects over the past year. We have about a dozen new games showing at New York Toy Fair. While I can’t reveal all the details just yet, keep an eye on our announcements and stay tuned for more exciting launches in the near future!

Also, voting is currently open where I’m nominated 2023 Game Innovator of the Year for the TAGIE Awards for the games Battleship Royale from Hasbro and The Golden Solution from Identity games.

We’ll put a link to that here. Good luck! Now, before we let you go, one last question: What would you say is your most underrated invention?
It’s difficult to pick just one, but if I had to choose… I probably wouldn’t say since it’s likely an idea that hasn’t seen the light of day yet! The path of the inventor is riddled with so much rejection, review trolls and ‘what could have been’ ideas. I try not to dwell on what some call ‘the failures’. There is only so much creative energy we can output in a day, and I try to keep that aimed at the next big thing. Innovation is an iterative process and you need to be optimistic, persistent and resilient to be successful.

David, always fun to chat. Congrats on Battleship Royale and good luck at the TAGIEs!

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The post Streamline Design’s David Yakos on putting a fresh twist on a classic with Battleship Royale appeared first on Mojo Nation.

Award-winning inventor David Yakos is the co-founder of Streamline Design, a invention studio responsible for toy and game hits like Thames & Kosmos’ Gumball Machine Maker, Gamewright’s Long Cow and Educational Insights’ Circuit Explorer range.

We caught up with David to learn more about what set him on the path to design, how he found his way into toys – and what fuels his creativity.

David, it’s a pleasure to finally connect. To kick us off, when did you get your passion for design from?
I grew up kind of in the inventing space. Back in the Eighties, there wasn’t the term ‘maker’. It was more about crafting. My mom had taken a cardboard box, cut it down and made ‘David’s Creative Corner’. It was my very own maker space in the house. She filled it full of everything; popsicle sticks, Elmer’s glue, pipe cleaners, empty bottles… That was my inventing tool kit.

I would invent things in my creative corner and one of my very first inventions was paper shoes. They were made out of construction paper, and I thought they were brilliant because you could fold them flat and mail shoes to your friends in an envelope.

Sounds like a winner to me! And there we have a snap of you in those paper shoes!
Yes! I also tried to make a Flintstones car that I would power with my feet. So I’ve been making stuff since I was little and I knew I was fulfilled if I was able to get my imagination out into my hands.

Amazing – and what a great thing for your mum to have created for you.
Absolutely. I’ve got four kids and I live in Montana in a log cabin. We joke that we have free-range children. We also have chickens, but we have free-range children. They play outside and we have a dedicated maker space in the house. It used to be a guest room, but it would only get used every other weekend. Once we took the bed out and made it a full-time maker space, it’s now used every day.

Sounds fantastic. So once you’d outgrown your creative corner, how did you turn this passion into a career?
I got a degree in mechanical engineering. It was a very tangible degree. I love the arts – I paint and draw and do a lot of my own art – but I felt a degree in engineering wasn’t really up for debate. It was something I needed to go through and learn, and it gave me the framework for design.

Industrial design would’ve been the alternative, but I went into engineering as an artist and faked my way through the math! I’m kind of a blend of right-brain and left-brain – I argue that everybody is whole-brained but everyone picks a camp. I encourage people to bridge that gap a bit and live in both spaces because that’s where I get complete ideas.

After my degree, I eventually started a company with my business partner, Stephen Sanford, called Salient Technologies – www.salient-tech.com. We didn’t develop products for the toy and game industry though! I kind of got into this space by accident!

What industries were you working in with Salient?
We developed high-tech aerospace pieces. We worked with NASA developing control valves for the planetary lander called the Morpheus 2. We developed leak-free oil valves, we developed dozens of paediatric wheelchairs for kids around the world across both the high-end market and for developing countries. We’ve created coffee machines, weed wackers, leaf blowers, ski bindings – you name it!

From NASA to weed wackers – that’s versality right there!
Yes, we run the full gamut of consumer product design. We’re drawn to that blend of artistry and engineering; that crossover where something has to look good but someone has to see it and understand how it’s going to work. It also has to be manufacturable for 20% of a retail cost. That’s where our strong suit at Salient came in; we have that blend of creative thinking combined with the analytical.

So how does toy invention enter the scene?
It was about seven years ago. I met Tanya Thompson through a creative conference hosted by HATCH. We would get around 100 of the top creatives from around the planet and pack everyone in one room for five days. Tanya was a guest there and she was at ThinkFun at the time. She asked me if I had any toy or game ideas, so along with a friend, we put one together, showed her and she said “I love it; we’ll take it!” It was like going into a casino and the first lever you pull you win!

Suddenly I had this gaming habit where I wanted to come up with more toys and games. The next year I licensed a couple of products that were both nominated for Toy of the Year.

What was that first product that Tanya licensed from you?
That was Maker Studio. It was a kit that utilised shampoo bottles and macaroni cheese boxes with gears and rubber bands to make little machines. It was my childhood realised in a box.

 
It looks great. Did you have that tucked away already, or did you invent that following the chat with Tanya?
Parker Thomas – the co-inventor – and I were actually going to launch it on Kickstarter and it them as wooden kits. We thought that if someone wants to take it, great – and we’ll think of something else.

Well, it certainly worked out! You mentioned two other products that followed Maker Studios that were both up for TOTYs – what were those?
Those were Mega Tracks for Lionel, and then Circuit Maze with ThinkFun. I was named Toy Inventor of the Year at the TAGIEs that year too.

This had all been under Streamline Design – www.streamlineco.com – which is our invention house. We utilise the team we have here at Salient and do that to fill in the gaps between the paid consumer products gigs.

Do the Salient projects inform some of the toy concepts you’re inventing with Streamline?
In most industries, everyone is divided into separate towers, and they never talk, so creativity never happens. I think creativity is the ability to connect things that don’t normally go together. Having the experience of going into different industries means one little thing could spark the right question or idea that will then inform something in a completely different area. It absolutely overlaps.

Every product – whether it’s a coffee machine or a build kit that teaches kids about circuits – has to be made, so it’s pretty much the same process; from concept to prototype, to prototype testing and finally, design for production.
 
Is working across different industries one of your biggest means of fuelling creativity?
People that want to live creatively need to read books about everything. They need to listen to podcasts about everything. They need to go to trade shows about everything. They need to buy the plane ticket and figure out the details later – just go!

My wife and I spent about five years travelling internationally and that alone informed so much of my creative process; seeing cultures different to our own daily loop.

Sticking with the diversity of industries that you work across, is there anything unique to the toy industry that you don’t see elsewhere?
Absolutely, it’s a special industry. Trade show-wise, I’ve been to everything from housewares to the Valve World, and this is the only industry where you end the day of meetings and then get together with your “competitors” and play games till two in the morning. They become your community and your friends. The ChiTAG community – now People of Play – was instrumental for me. It introduced me to the industry of play and its where I met many people that have become good friends.

Also, typically people working on stuff are enjoying what they’re doing! It’s not as much of a button-pushing grind. You’re working in the industry of play; if you don’t like fun get out of it!

Absolutely. Now, delving into your approach to design, if we look at your toy and game output, is there a through line between the sorts of things you’re inventing?
There are some veins that have been a little bit stronger. We’ve found a pretty good niche in STEM and STEAM toys. Some recent examples of that came in 2020, when we were up for two more TOTYS for Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty Puzzle and Thames & Kosmos’ Gumball Machine Maker.

With those, do you set out to design something that is going to help kids develop certain skills, or do you start with ‘Wouldn’t it be fun for kids to build their own gumball machine”?
Designing an “educational toy” is a mistake. Sneak in the educational part inside the fun; we always start with fun. It’s the trojan horse approach! Our most recent one with Thames & Kosmos is the Candy Claw Machine. It’s a candy machine, but you’re learning about hydraulics and gear ratios accidentally. It’s snuck in!

Circuit Maze, which we invented for ThinkFun, really is circuits 101. I started out as an electrical engineer in college, before moving to mechanical. If you go through all these puzzles, you’ll have the intuitive nature for this that you’d get from a circuits 101 class at college, but it’s snuck into a game.

We try to have a purpose behind our inventions, but some are silly and the purpose with those is simply to bring families together.

How helpful do you find wish lists?
Wish lists are a framework to say ‘This is what our existing toys look like; now fill the gaps.’ In my opinion, a wish list isn’t a list of what they want; it’s more of a list of what they don’t want. If they knew what they wanted, they wouldn’t ask for it. They help you spot the gaps in a product line.

As we’re chatting, I’m trying not to make eye contact with the amazing Einstein mural behind you! If that’s anything to go by, I imagine your workspace is a creative, fun one?
Ha, you should see it! We spend a third of our life at work so I want to be in an environment that I enjoy being in. I’ve painted a number of murals on the walls; I painted Einstein here one weekend.

We also have a full prototyping shop which enables us to get our imaginations out as fast as possible and communicating that with people.

With regards to our team, I feel like Voltron. There’s all these robots, and you put them together to create one super robot… That’s our team here! We have such a great team of industrial designers, engineers, and game designers. Together we are able to attack everything, and we value open communication.

We also built a two-passenger wooden kit plane that we hooked up with RC controllers; they’re actually garage door clickers and linear actuators so you can control the flaps. There’s a ping pong room, lots of games and we have Nerf battles – there’s darts pretty much stuck behind every piece of furniture. In the loft we have instruments set up for a jam. It’s a fun space.

It sounds amazing!
There’s also something about being in Montana that really speaks to our creative culture. We go on office ski days and do a lot of mountaineering and fly fishing. The Montana lifestyle is about being very active in the wilderness, and then being here on Zoom… I think we get away with both sides!

We’ve mentioned a few of your award wins, and at last year’s TAGIEs, you were named Toy Innovator of the Year for your work on Educational Insights’ Circuit Explorer Rocket, Circuit Explorer Rover and Circuit Explorer Deluxe Base Station. Diving into that range, what sparked the idea for that?
When it comes to imaginative play, we want to give kids enough of a framework to see their imagination quickly. In my childhood, I wanted to get my idea into my hands as fast as possible. With build kits, if you can give kids a sense of ownership over what it is they’ve built, I feel the play and the skills they’re learning are imprinted deeper into the brain. They feel like they created it, even though we gave them the building blocks.

You’re essentially doing what you mum did when she built your Creative Corner.
Exactly; that’s the idea!

Where do you find ideas come from? What creative habits have you embraced?
Everybody has ideas; they’re a dime a dozen. They’re not really worth anything until you do something with them – and ideas show up to a lot of people at once because our culture informs our ideas.

Sometimes I’ll have an idea because the culture is pushing that and someone across the pond will have the same idea. It’s about who acts on it first, so the first thing I always do is write it down or draw it. Then it’s not going to go away. It’s like dreams – you wake up remembering a great dream, and you’ve forgotten it by the time you’re eating your bacon. Every time I have an idea, I write it down. You’ve got to.

The other thing is that as adults, our imaginations are beaten out of us. It’s deemed childish. I know that every one of my ideas and inventions came out of my imagination. Why on Earth would I give away my creative authority by growing out of it? I will playtest something in my imagination – it’s the quickest and cheapest playtest! I encourage people to be proud of their imaginations.

David, this has been great. Before I let you go, we should mention your Hidden Role podcast. What should people know about this?
I came into this world of play and wondered how I hadn’t heard these amazing stories. Getting to hear the stories behind the ideas and learn about the inventors’ process – I suppose you do this as well; you’re doing it right now! So I thought it would be fun to have those conversations and start recording them.

It’s been super fun, along with my co-host Branson Faustini, we’ve spoken to the inventors of Jenga, Twister & Nerf, Bop It, Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty, Rory’s Story Cubes, Ice Cool, Beadle and Grimm’s…

And folks can check those out at https://www.hiddenrolepodcast.com. Before we wrap up, how can companies reach out should they want to connect?
I’m the only David Yakos so I’m easy to find! But they can find our toys and games at http://www.streamlineco.com  or product design and engineering at http//salient-tech.com.

Great stuff. David, this was fun; I’m looking forward to catching up again soon.

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The post Streamline Design’s David Yakos on creativity, curiosity and why we should be proud of our imaginations appeared first on Mojo Nation.