Series: Frank Kozik Interview
- Frank Kozik Interview - Part I
- Frank Kozik Interview - Part II
- Frank Kozik Interview: Pt. III
We’ve all let Frank Kozik into our homes, our offices and even our bedrooms. Be it his Smorkin’ Labbits, Hate Dunnys, Dr. Bomb or neon pink Ho Chi Mihn busts, his work takes up a good chunk of any self-respecting urban designers’ collection. I’ve personally known Frank for eons, “back in the day” I was even on a bowling league team with him when the famous Amoeba Records in San Francisco was comprised of lanes of wood rather than records. We’d lost touch in recent years. Fast-forward to today and my old bowling buddy is now one of the premier toy designers in the whole wide world. He’s a lucky man, he’s had not one but two successful artistic careers. Hoping some of his luck would rub off, I visited him at his toy filled, and exceptionally tidy, San Francisco office atop a motorcyle shop (where he parks many of his seven bikes as well as his newly acquired Dodge Charger he’s about to refurbish). Come with me as I open the floodgates to the artistic genius and business savvy of the one and only Frank Kozik.
How did you make this transition from posters to playthings?
At first I just collected toys. And I did a couple things for Medicom and Bounty Hunter. And I thought “This is cool” and I wanted to do this in the states. This is like 2001 and I shut down the whole music thing and was basically doing commercial work and painting but I really wanted to make these toys. I did get one gig designing toys for a vending machine company. I learned a lot, a) they paid me a bunch of money and b) learned how not to make the toys, because they did everything backwards. I started making designs and just started stockpiling them. Then Kidrobot opened the retail website and I started buying stuff and after a while I got a phone call saying “Is this the Frank Kozik that that did the stuff for Medicom and Bounty Hunter? Well we want to make toys with you.” And I was ready. I was like Bam! Let’s make it happen. And they’ve since sold a shitload of my stuff. It’s taken off. Well, the Kaws guy, in the after market, it goes for a lot more and he’s more famous at a certain level, but I make the most toys and sell the most toys in the marketplace. I release a toy almost once a week, now, five years later. And what’s interesting about the toys is that first, as you know, I had pretty good success over the years doing stuff in the music world, doing posters, and the label (Man’s Ruin) did okay. But as a creative person, it’s not really me, it was about the band. What’s really cool about the toy thing is that 98% of the people who buy and collect my toys have no idea I did anything else before. Since the toys are all my own content… I’m not collaging something, there’s no band name, it’s not cool because it has some band on it, so that’s really nice. So after this twenty-five year career I’m finally getting some validation.
(some of Kozik’s toys)
Another thing about the toy scene is that it’s the exact opposite of my experience in the music business. The music business –especially the independent music business– is based on this concept of exclusion. Like what kind of music do you listen to, what kind of clothes do you wear. There are like 50,000 white dudes who went to college at some point and that was my customer base. It’s really limited. The toys thing, everyone likes toys. I sell toys to every country, every race, male, female, eight years old, seventy years old. There is this huge, international thing. It’s like what everything should be like. The toy thing is about inclusion. And toy events are always really positive; there’s always a lot of good energy. There’s no weird politics, there’s no hassles, there’s no creepy manager people. It’s really refreshing, and it’s really creative and that’s really nice.
STAY TUNED FOR PART 2
(Kozik’s Drawing Table)
May 27th, 2008 at 10:06 am
So that drawing table is where it all takes place. Very cool. Great start to the interview. I can’t wait for part 2.