As member of the new business team at Creata I was part of the company's effort to enter into the retail toy business. We developed Monster 500: a original Intellectual Property about a cast of crazy creatures and their souped-up machines competing in the other-worldly Monster 500 race. Toys R Us signed on as the exclusively retailer for this exciting, new brand.
I was the creative lead in the development of the brand's colorful, yet gritty identity targeted at a young boy demographic (age 7-12) . Below are some pages from the style guide, showing key visuals that were developed and used in all the brand's marketing materials.
I worked with the marketing team at Toys R Us to develop bi-lingual packaging that conformed to their retail space and price points. Below are the single car packs. Since each Monster 500 character belong to a racing team which had it's own logo and color, the base of each package was color coded to denote the specific racing team.
Here are the packages developed for the larger versions of the cars that featured lights and sounds. Open tray packages allowed accessibility to "Try Me" buttons that triggered the electronics. The package base color varied to deliver the color of each monster's racing team.
Below are the packages for the play sets. I hired renowned illustrator Mark Fredrickson to create the awesome cover illustrations for each of the play sets.
The Monster 500 carrying case used a simple "belly band" to deliver messaging while allowing kids to see all the cool detail of the product.
The carrying case came with a fun bonus: a 24" x 36" collector's poster and checklist so kid's could keep track of which characters they had and which ones they still needed.
As the creator of this new Intellectual Property, we were also the licensor. Below were product examples we created for the style guide as a guide to licensees on the look of the brand.
Who wouldn't want to create a website to tell kids about crazy characters like Evil Clownevil and Captain Heinous from Uranus?! When we created this original toy brand for Toys R Us - which unlike most toy lines was not supported by a TV show - this was our chance to draw kids into our wacky world of speed-obsessed, racing monsters. The website featured character and racing team bios, toy images and descriptions, and even a online collector's checklist. The fun and the puns were not spared! Homepage
"Meet the Monsters" page for the Lunatic Legends Racing Team
"Meet the Monsters" page for the Animal Asylum Racing Team
"See the Toys" page showcasing the diecast cars
"See the Toys" page showcasing the playsets
Page highlighting the free Racing App
