What Some of Us Get Wrong About Toy Design

By George Lysy • May 2026

Recently, I was scrolling LinkedIn when I came across one of those AI-gussied posts from a no-profile-picture account, the type that everybody has seen.

It was written as a dialogue between a cost analyst and a manufacturing specialist about a toy car. Should they bother to mould in a detailed undercarriage? The analyst said no, it costs an extra two cents for every thousand or so cars, and that adds up over time, especially since, of course, nobody actually playing with the toy would care. But the specialist said, enthusiasts would care, collectors would care, and the value of the customers’ loyalty and respect outweighs the money.

Ai-smeared as the post is, it has a good message for businesses, and especially for us industrial designers. But as a toy designer, one thing really stood out to me. The post supposed that only “Enthusiasts” and “collectors” would care about the detail. And that the kids, of course… would not?

Ignoring the dubiousness of minuscule detail work costing anything in the grand scheme of things… This reminded me of a common fallacy I have seen in design, and design for children in particular, which signals a fundamental misunderstanding of consumers at large. Tunnel vision for “intended use”, and a dismissal of “unintended use.”

Optimizing an item’s ergonomics, function, and aesthetic just makes sense for single-use appliances. But toys are different. And too many self-styled “human-centric” designers port the same outlook to toys. To them, all their users want to do with their cars is to make them go fast and crash them into the furniture, as the manufacturer intended.

…But really, the term “user” is too impersonal to describe the relationship a child has with a toy.

When I was a kid, I played with my toys all of the time. The way they were marketed, too. But half the time, I just looked at them. Admiring details, clutching it in my pocket while at a restaurant. What they could “do” was only ever just one of the things appealing about them. We identified.

Cars are powerful, loud, monstrous. Sound familiar? Of course, a small girl or boy would identify with them!

The detail, far from useless, preserved the illusion that all the frightening, awe-inspiring power of a joyous, dangerous machine– the same that took you to your grandparents, but also must be feared whenever you are outside– can be contained in your hand. And isn’t preserving that illusion, that these things are the real thing, a crucial part of the toys? All the little nuts and bolts, the exhaust, the shocks remind our inner children of this. Our dreams and fears made miniature, safe to play and make light of.

Maybe future collectors will marvel at the old-school, extravagant design of the old die-cast toy cars. Actually, they are already. But maybe what they are studying isn’t just the maximalist approach of a vanished design era, but a change in perspective: a practical one, that values an exaggerated version of the real thing, a car that can go without any exhaust, only the child’s imagination– formerly, the externalizing of a child’s love for marvellous mechanical mysteries.

It’s always easy to ask: “What can somebody do with this toy?” But it’s always harder to answer “What will this toy do to somebody, what effect will it have on them?” That question can never be answered. But it should never be discarded. The most inscrutable, but most important, aspect of what makes a child want a toy is what kind of deeply emotional, personal, rational bond they will develop with it.