ShakyGlobe is Shaking it up

Found this article from aNb Media (Royalties, Toys & Family Entertainment, Time to Play Magazine) on ShakyPlanet today. We have a few ShakyGlobe collections in their store. If you have an iPhone check out the app, and start collecting!

The article mentions "...Monkey Doodle Dandy (soon to be a product line from Gund) are just a few of the licensed versions available,"  but it should be noted Monkey Doodle Dandy is the company, and Squaredy Cats is the property GUND is licensing for plush.

UPDATED:
The good folks at aNb Media made a change to the paragraph at our request (YAY! Thanks :)

It now reads:
"The licensing possibilities are endless. Licensing will play a large and immediate role in the snow globe concept. Speed Racer, ComicCon 2010, and Squaredy Cats (soon to be a licensed product line from Gund created by Monkey Doodle Dandy) are just a few of the licensed versions available."


Check their store for:

Squaredy Cats
Squarey Monsters
GirlMonsters

Here's the ShakyPlanet Facebook page.

Good news in good reviews

There's a good review for the I've Never… game we worked on for INI over at creators.com.

We're always pleased to see when things go well for the companies we work for and products we work on.

Great gift idea for the upcoming holiday season :)

Squaredy Cats featured in AM New York

Check AM New York's PDF archives. They did a story on Monkey Doodle Dandy and our Squaredy Cats on September 27, 2010. Article by Rachel Stern, photo by Michael Kirby Smith

You might be able to click the image above to read it.

aNb knows the Real Deal!

Four from the first series of Squaredy Cats.

Our best press yet in the trades. aNn Media who publishes Royalties and Toys & Family Entertainment mentioned Squaredy Cats on the Real Deal page of their online version (hoping it makes a printed issue as well).
They were the first to use one of the photos we included with our press release about the deal with GUND. We need people to see these fuzzy creatures, so please pass it along :)

Link to article.

It's officially published. GUND is making Squaredy Cats

We got our first alert since the press release went out. Gift Shop Magazine has published the news on their website. GUND is making Squaredy Cats plush :)
We couldn't be more excited! It's real ;)

Here's the link.

The first series will be nine Squaredy Cats. Below is an image of 4 samples of the plush Squaredy Cats in the first series GUND is making.

Squaredy Cats mention

License Global mentioned our recent licensing deals for Squaredy Cats in their online daily news :)

The NEW new studio

It's been a while since we've posted regularly, but that's probably a good sign because we are so busy or because SO MUCH is a SECRET! There's so much "mum" is the word on so much of what we're doing. We've been hoping to make some big announcements recently, but there seems to be a lot of hurry up and wait in the world of licensing.

Because we've been so sporadic in posting to the blog, I'm pretty sure we never got around to posting much about our new studio…that we moved into…in January, 2009 :P   -   and of course, we have since left that studio, and moved into a new studio after that…in October, 2009. It's now April, 2010, and I'm getting around to posting pix of our brand new empty studio. We've filled it with all our stuff since then, and maybe by the time we move out of this one we'll find the time to post those pix ;)

Here's what our studio on 2nd Avenue in Brooklyn looked like a few days before we moved in:

That's our Mini Cooper. Our studio is the fifth window in (without the AC).

The front door of Studio 35 looking into the hallway.

The building our studio used to be a textile factory, and is in is under the F,N,R trains.

By the way, this blog now feeds directly into our Facebook page. Fan us there for other updates, and you can follow us more closely as we monkey around.

Sketchatoy Interview

We were interviewed on the Sketchatoy blog. Check it out here

Toy Fair 2010

As usual, we've been so busy, I haven't had a chance to comment on the recent Toy Fair. We have to be careful about what we say since everything there is pretty much somebody's top secret. If we were "press" I'm sure we would be allowed to divulge some of the secrets we saw, but since we share a place in the industry as toy designers and licensors we must respect the wishes of who we talked to about what we witnessed.

This may have been our most important Toy Fair yet because we are working on designing Squaredy Cats with [undisclosed plush company], and we had a meeting with our agents and [undisclosed plush company] to view the most recent samples they've made. We were thrilled with how they look, and we can't wait to show you images of the actual products once they're made. We should have plush Squaredy Cats in stores this October along with some other fun items.

It's also always exciting to see products we had a hand in designing that show up at Toy Fair or in the stores. Typically it can take up to two years to see a final product on something we designed or helped design. Usually, by the time something shows up in public we hold back on announcing it because we feel we've grown so much artistically since the initial work was done. That might just be normal artist self-doubt.

One client that we work with was willing to allow us to photograph their booth. INI, Inc produces the game, I've Never… along with a few other titles and merchandise based on the I've Never brand. We've done quite a bit of work for them. Check out their games, and if you buy one of their items, tell'em we sent ya.

The INI Toy Fair booth with some of their titles, the I've Never…Game,

I've Never…Beer Pong, I've Never…Party Dice, the I've Never…Game for Kids.

Brainstorm Session

Brainstorming is an important part of a toy designer/inventor's day. This is what a brainstorming session looks like at Monkey Doodle Dandy Studio!

Paperoni Deluxe Studio has a commercial

See THE COMMERCIAL here

The Paperoni Deluxe Studio is available on Amazon now :)

Spin Master's Paperoni Deluxe Studio is available on Amazon.
Elaine designed some of the Paperoni animals for this and other sets. She did preliminary concept sketches, and worked out 3-D mock-ups for most of these Paperoni characters.
Visit the official paperoni site :)