Principal Toy Designer

Job Title: Principal Product Designer

Department: Product Design

Reporting To: Director – Product Design

Location: Newtown, PA

Company Overview:

Just Play is a passionate and trend driven leader in the children’s consumer goods industry. Our products are an impressive mix of promotional and everyday items for the whole family. We work with the world’s leading children’s entertainment brands to manufacture and distribute exceptional products to every major mass retailer throughout North America and around the world.

Job Summary:

Industry leading children’s consumer goods company is seeking a Principal Product Designer to work on several brands and categories in a fast-paced and exciting environment. The ideal candidate will be a professional team player that can manage multiple tasks/projects simultaneously in a timely manner, while maintaining the highest level of organization.

To ensure success as a Principal Product Designer, the ideal candidate will:

• Be a collaborative team-player who is adept at processing feedback from a wider functional team.
• Possess strong sketching, drawing, rendering and dimensional styling skills and the ability to apply them to a fast-paced, iterative design process.
• Have the inspiration to translate their passion for preschool toys into exciting new toy features.
• Be an expert with developing a toy from concept to prototype, and through manufacturing stages.

Principal Responsibilities:

• Responsible for advancing a product from concept to production by creating concept illustrations, technical drawings, decoration specs, and production documents.
• Communicate design information and updates throughout a development process.
• Prepare and present concepts and PowerPoint layout boards for licensor & retailer meetings.
• Manage design documents and deliverables needed for licensor approvals.
• Arrange on-site printing and review of design prototypes and models.
• Review engineering prototypes to ensure that quality, feature, and material standards are met.
• Provide occasional guidance to junior level designers in primary design tasks.
• Track design development stages for complex product lines to ensure on time delivery.
• Lead overall design vision and year-over-year innovation for owned brands.
• Ensure that design direction complies with all necessary safety, cost, and production parameters.
• Communicate daily with Asia partners.
• Uphold design aesthetics while coordinating with manufacturing partners.
• Effectively communicate and interact with other departments as it relates to assigned product lines.

Minimum Qualifications:

• 10+ years’ experience in the toy industry.
• BSA or BFA in Industrial Design or Toy Design.
• Strong sketching ability and presentation skills.
• Knowledge of toy development processes including sculpture, model making, rapid prototyping, engineering design, and simple IC development.
• Knowledge of toy manufacturing processes including injection molding, rotational molding, blow molding, decoration processes (spray masks, tampo printing, silk screening, DIJ), electronic basics, assembly, packing, and shipping.
• Proficient in Adobe Creative Cloud (especially Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop)
• Microsoft 365
• Excellent communication skills.
• Ability to travel domestically as well as internationally.