Plastics and designer toys
Ryan Rutherford specializes in designing and mass manufacturing plastic products at work, while making limited edition designer toys with a vintage roto-mold machine at home.
I found Ryan on the internet when I wondered if I could make my own capsule toys, and came across his Instructable explaining how he made his “Ice Scream Man” collectible toy. Intrigued, I cold emailed him, and he was kind enough to share his advice and manufacturing stories for this article.
How did you get into design and manufacturing? How did you know it was for you, and how did you land your first job?
I was a Lego kid, or any building toy really: Lincoln logs, Construx, Erector Sets, and as I got older, model kits and R.C. cars. High school was rough for me but I always connected with the art and shop teachers. I applied to Pratt in my senior year in high school (1996), and got in based on my portfolio even though my grades were not great. I deferred enrollment for a few years while I worked retail and manual labor jobs and attended a local community college to try to get my grades up so I had a chance at some scholarships. I also played in some local punk bands but always enjoyed making merch more than I did performing — making buttons, stickers and silk-screening t-shirts. In 2000 I finally started at Pratt as a painting major. During my first semester, I ran into a friend I had known since the first grade and he offered to take me on a tour of the Industrial Design department. My mind was blown. I knew this was what I was supposed to be doing and I switched majors the very next day.
You teach industrial design at Kean University, taking students from ideation all the way to manufacturing. What advice do you have for people trying to productionize an idea for the first time?
Have a plan and a budget. Everyone has a great idea. Great products come from the people willing to do all the hard work that it takes to make a great idea a reality.
Who is going to design, engineer, prototype, and test your idea? How are you going to pay for the production? Who is going to sell it, ship it, and administer customer service?
Do you have a story of a mistake you’ve made in manufacturing and what you learned from it?
I make mistakes all the time. On a small scale, I might mix up a batch of resin in the wrong color or in the wrong ratios. That costs a few hundred dollars or ruins a mold.
On a slightly larger scale I signed off on a product with a printing error on a major brand name that required a rework of about 5K pieces. I had to order stickers that covered the mistake.
On an even larger scale I once sourced a new thermoplastic elastomer which we purchased by the truckload (roughly 100,000lbs of material). This was a high grade material. We tested physical properties, visual properties, durability, etc. We thought we put the product through the ringer. After about 6 months of production and sales we started getting complaints that the toys were showing up to stores greasy. Turns out we didn’t test for extreme cold because we never considered the product needed it but when you ship through Wisconsin in the middle of the winter, trucks get cold.
The key is to always learn and be able to prioritize the details of the problem and work through them… and also have more successes than mistakes.
What I have learned is to be vigilant in reviews and approvals, and not get lazy and expect a system to catch mistakes. Anticipate as many problems as possible in your development.
When you’re making limited edition art toys, how do you know how many to make in each production run?
When I started, I just assumed I’d be a success and based my production numbers on what I knew about the industry. At the time, a successful vinyl toy could move around 500 pieces.
When I launched the Ice Scream Man I did all my production ahead of time, stocked up on inventory, and then sold it just like someone working with an outside factory. Fortunately this worked out fine and the character was popular enough to move my inventory. The advantage I had was that I was also the factory. As I moved on to other designs I learned to test the waters and moved more to a manufacture on demand model, so I never ended up with too much extra stock.
Which of the projects you’ve worked on is your favorite?
All of them are my favorite when I’m working on them and then when they’re “done”, I usually hate them.
How do you stay creative?
It’s just what I do. I am always fidgeting and making something even if it’s just a folded piece of paper or a wire I picked up off the table.
I am motivated by other creative people. I think Instagram is an amazing tool for connecting creative people.
Reach out, be nice, start a conversation, make new friends… all those things help me continue to be creative.
Do you have opinions about what responsibilities manufacturers have around thermoplastics and recyclability?
This is a deep and tough question. I struggle all the time with all the things I have created and whether they were really necessary and where they ultimately end up (the dump).
I think we should always be thoughtful about our use of plastics and how or why we design new products. I’d like to think that I prefer useful products that are meant to last a lifetime, but I have had as much success selling plastic “art” as I have had selling “functional products”. I like to have fun and make people smile… maybe that’s the function of my art and the way I justify it?
Ryan runs Brutherford Industries, and you can find his website and portfolio at https://www.brutherford.com/
