Casdon’s Lead Creative Designer, Lee Glickman, discusses his work on Heinz and Build-a-Bear licenses

Lee, what a treat to see you! We’ve been talking about doing an interview for a couple of years… I’m not going to blame you for the delay, but I’m certainly not going to blame myself. Shall we say Alex Reynolds got in the way?
Absolutely. Disgraceful behaviour – what is it with Alex? But no – time just runs away from us, doesn’t it?

Well, as it happens, now’s quite a good time to chat because you had two licensed toys at London Toy Fair that I just loved… Before I get to that, what’s your job title, Lee?
I’m the Lead Creative Designer at Casdon. Casdon is a third-generation toy business. It’s still family run and delivering on its mission to invent toys that not only spark imagination but also help support child development through play.

Fantastic! And while the company’s nearly 80, your licenses look pretty modern… Just quickly: what does it mean to be the Lead Creative Designer? I can’t see you being very hands off!
Ha! Well, no; I like to be in the thick of it. Sometimes that means coming up with ideas from scratch, other times it means delivering on an opportunity from a brand or a licensor. Often, it’s about spitballing with Alex and working out where IP can go… What could we do with this brand? Is there a gap in the market for this? Will it really have an audience? How can we make a brand toyetic? How can we give it an angle and a twist to make it more kid orientated? So that’s the blue-sky thinking coming into play.

And beyond the initial ideation?
Beyond that, my role goes all the way through the product development lifecycle: ideation, costing, Visual and play, refinement and finally packaging, adding as much creativity and message consideration as possible. How will it sit on shelf? How do we make it jump out? What value can we add? How can we hit the right price point? Because, as a company, we have a focus on quality and brand: it’s so much a part of everything that Casdon does… We never, ever compromise on that – but we do want to make it cost effective for us and price effective for families.

Terrific! Let’s talk about your Heinz range. It’s a pretty straightforward play pattern: toy food for role play. I get the impression your team put a lot of thought into it, though… Where did you start with that?
Well, Heinz is a really interesting brand because it’s got quite a tongue-in-cheek feel to it. I certainly think their marketing puts it across that way. For that reason, one of the questions on our minds was how we could show that in the range – and show it in two ways… In the products’ play value and on the packaging. Then, as we started developing things, every item we came back to seemed to involve the ketchup. We realised that had to be the main star of the show.

Yes, I imagine that Heinz – as a brand – gets the most recognition from their ketchup or baked beans. You did both in the range!
Right. And in the end, the ketchup has turned out great. It’s huge fun! It’s a squeezy bottle that seemingly lets you squirt Heinz tomato ketchup out of it. What I love is watching people – adults or kids – lifting up the bottle and thinking, ‘Oh, that’s cute! But when they squeeze it, this stream of what looks like red sauce shoots out. The immediate reaction is just awesome! Every single kid who sees it lifts it up and pretends to shoot it into their mouth – every single time. So it was a no brainer for us to do that; it’s fantastic!

And is that based on the old practical joke of having a mustard bottle that shoots out a piece of string?
It’s based on exactly that – but ours isn’t string going in and out, it’s thermoplastic rubber; TPR. It looks much more realistic. Making it in TPR also means it’s got a bit more heft. We were quite specific about doing that because string felt a bit flimsy. It also didn’t feel on brand enough… It’s hard to explain, but there’s almost like a ‘splat’ at the end – like when ketchup naturally splats when it hits your plate… So we wanted to echo that to have it feel as on brand as possible.

This is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you about this… You’ve really tried to show the tone of the brand in the tone of the product.
We really have! And while the ketchup’s the star of the show, my personal favourite is the fish and chips. It comes in a set that you open up with a little fork: you can pick up your little bits and bobs! You’ve got your ketchup, pieces of fish and sauces – all these fun little touches. Oddly, this was one of the last products added to the range. It came to me in a spontaneous moment of saying, “Wait! Why aren’t we doing fish and chips? Oh my god!”

That’s a real surprise given that Casdon is based in Blackpool… I mean: Blackpool is renowned for fish and chips!
Right! You would think fish and chips would be top of our list!

Alrighty… I want to move onto the Build-a-Bear Stuffing Station, but I did want to say kudos to you and the team on the packaging in the Heinz range. Was that a challenge to get right?
You know what?! The way we envisioned the packaging was a huge challenge! Getting that absolutely where we wanted it to sit on the blister took a lot of doing… Getting the Heinz bottle on its side took some work too. It might not sound much, but we wanted that to have a real impact. So as soon as you see it on shelves, you’ve got wicked, attention-grabbing artwork and you see the bottle and there’s an amazing moment of thinking, ‘Hang on a minute. What’s that?!’ It draws you in. All that was a challenge, but the factory came through for us.

Fantastic. Thanks, Lee. The other licensed triumph I wanted to discuss is the Build-a-Bear Stuffing Station. I absolutely LOVE it! Now, before we started the interview, did I hear you right? That another company has tried to do this before?
Ah, thank you Deej. We’re super excited for this product. The play pattern is really simple and, with our pump mechanism, kids intuitively want to play with it. We have a kid-powered pump with an Archimedes screw inside… When you push the pump down, the screw drives the stuffing into the bears – and brings them to life!

So to be clear: the Archimedes screw is what moves the stuffing from inside the machine and pushes it forward into the bear skin…
Right. The main challenge we had was to balance holding the bear in place, holding the product down AND pumping the stuffing into the bear… All at the same time! I thought the best way to do it was to lock a bear in place so that you didn’t need to hold it, then use one hand to stready the machine. Then, the other had is free to simply push down on a plunger. So pushing the plunger turns the screw and propels the stuffing out. That gives you a lovely toy attic motion; it’s super satisfying for kids who just want to wallop it over and over.

Wallop! Great word! And I’m glad you mentioned that because Billy Langsworthy really took the piss when I got excited about about that compression movement turning the screw. But it’s GREAT!
Thank you! And in fairness, turning a crank is the obvious way to do it. It’s efficient for the mechanism…

Efficient for the mechanism, but not for the user!
Right. I don’t normally think about the mechanism first. I’m usually about the brand, the aesthetics, the play value and how it can be kid orientated. But if you look at the way a child plays, you’ll quickly see that they would want this to work in a certain way. So I really hang my hat on the way ours works – I think we’re right. It’s worked out well; it’s phenomenally successful.

We’re on the same page, Lee. And I think Billy was only taking the piss because – let’s be honest – he’s out of his depth intellectually and creatively…
He wouldn’t really know what we we’re talking about. He just doesn’t get it.

He doesn’t, Lee. And he’s like a frightened child. He attacks the things he doesn’t understand.
Just lashes out. Right?

Right. But worth saying: in terms of feeling like you’re getting the Build-a-Bear experience, you’ve nailed this. Out of interest, was there anything else that presented an interesting challenge?
Getting the pump to properly function with the clutch to make sure it safely brought the stuffing all the way through was a massive challenge. It’s fantastic now that we’ve got to the end result… But I think everyone in the R&D department wondered, at some point, if this was physically possible. We realised why people had settled for the direct power and pressure of a crank handle!

Love it. And now that you’ve explained it, so will Billy! To wrap things up, Lee, let me ask you this: what’s the most interesting object on your desk?
Woah! The most interesting object on my desk? Hmmm. To be honest with you, I’m usually surrounded by pop vinyls.

Pop vinyls? You mean like vinyl pop records? Or Funko Pop!?
Ha! Funko Pop! I’ve got at least 26 here and maybe another 30 or so in my office at home. It’s a very good collection ranging from He-Man and Mad Men to Marvel, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.

Oh, wow! And is there any criteria as to which figures you collect?
Frankly, anything Star Wars normally gets an immediate purchase. I’ve always been a massive fan of Star Wars. It’s phenomenal! But recently, my son’s interest in it has really re-energised me! He watched a couple and just loved them. That then led into the Marvel world and then into Harry Potter. And Harry Potter has been a massive part of my life growing up: reading the books, seeing the films. So obviously, I’ve got tons of Harry Potter Funko as well.

Great answer. Thanks Lee. Let’s not leave it long before we speak again… I’d love to hear some of your thoughts on creativity.