ToyCyte sale!
We've slashed our prices for a lot of our toys to make room for more customs! Go get some amazing deals today at our store !
<-->
Wed, Feb 25, 2009
Out with the old. In with the new. Cartoon Network has now been rebranded Kidrobot style:
Cartoon Network’s brand identity is inseparable from the identities of the countless interesting and lovable characters which inhabit the CN airwaves. The characters themselves are the brand and their collective power makes Cartoon Network what it is. With this redesign we had the opportunity to create an undeniably strong connection between the network and its content. Using one unifying body shape (designed by urban vinyl legends Kidrobot) we created an interchangeable system of elements that gathered all of CN’s characters into one place. These blank figures, called Noods, are the canvases upon which characters of all shapes, sizes, and styles can coexist. The CN logo is also an extension of that vocabulary as the colors and patterns from the characters – their DNA – find their way onto the network’s blocky logotype for the first time. The resulting world is a playground of rich colors and unlimited combinations, ownable only by Cartoon Network.
Among many things that I love about Clutter is that they often tell it like it is, as well as ask insightful questions. Here’s an excerpt from Maz, who managed to already sum up what I would have said:
Working with Tristan Eaton they have created this ‘new’ generic shape called Noods. I personally think its lazy design which is simply a stretched Munny with a kinda lightbulb shaped head. However you can clearly see that its from the hands of Kidrobot, so from a marketing point of view its genius… Get them while they are young, Hook them in and get them spending! Does this devalue the high end of the ‘art’ based scene? Or does it capture children’s imagination and encourage creativity? It really makes me wonder.
My response to her question is “probably both.” Kidrobot has had detractors and defectors for a while now. In a similar way to how Big Tobacco knows its products kill, Kidrobot likely has been having meetings in which they discuss the relative off-putting nature of high-end handbags and mainstream movie and TV partnerships to its original core fanbase. No doubt they realize that “aging down” their toys, merchandise, models and collaborations ages out most folks who were born before 1980. Many people who began collecting Kidrobot products in the early 2000s have moved on to other companies, many more have remained faithful (or faithfully on the fence) and yet many more are new to collecting due to the efforts of Kidrobot. I do love seeing children open blind box toys in stores. In fact, children are probably the only demographic who can truly appreciate the “magic” of paying for an uncertainty. (Coincidentally, kids always seem to pull chases.) In a nutshell, it’s hard to fault a company for moving forward, yet one certainly has the right to grumble about the “good old days.”
Jeremy Brautman - who has written 1965 posts on ToyCyte: Toy Culture Collected.
Jeremy Brautman joined ToyCyte in 2008 and has been writing about toy culture ever since. You can currently find him contributing to a variety of blogs, artkiving doodles at Doodlesplatter.com and cataloging artistic ephemera at ARTkivers.com.
[...] soon and will be completely free to play at the Scarygirl website. With designer vinyl giant Kidrobot rebranding Cartoon Network, the reach of the medium certainly seems to be widening. I can think of a few toy series right off [...]
[...] soon and will be completely free to play at the Scarygirl website. With designer vinyl giant Kidrobot rebranding Cartoon Network, the reach of the medium certainly seems to be widening. I can think of a few toy series right off [...]
February 25th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I’ve been watching these commercials for at least 4 months and wondering the same thing : is this awesome stuff going too mainstream? I’ve also been telling myself that I’d totally buy a ‘Nood’ of Chowder, or Flapjack and Captain Kanuckles, just because they’re such outstanding shows.
Still, I never object to the opportunities that arise from a new blank figure. That would be like rejecting a canvas because it was made by a different company. Now, if these are to become actual figures instead of digital renderings, that’s a different story.
February 25th, 2009 at 11:23 am
anything worth anything goes mainstream eventually.
The question will be weather the real brains behind this (the underground artists) will reap the rewards, or will big corporations grab cheap generic designers to pump out lookalike products?….
February 25th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Light Bulb Munny’s…lame figure. Could’ve been so much more creative. But having talked to Kozik a month back, you can’t expect much creativity at KR anymore.
February 25th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Ooh Kylo you can’t just drop a comment like that and not give us a little quote of some kind. Devil’s advocate: With a recurring theme on every platform on earth, The People want to know what Kozik wants to say about creativity!
February 25th, 2009 at 11:35 am
well, they have a formula and they’re running with it…
February 25th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
This is the problem that I have with Mighty Muggs. Hasbro sells blanks, but the blanks are pretty much COMPLETELY unworkable, brittle plastic. It’s like they saw an idea and ran with it without really knowing what it all meant. On the plus side, they stand up a LOT better in the oven than vinyl – great for working up, bad for working IN.
But you don’t see me NOT buying a Ghost Rider Mighty Mugg, either.
If Hasbro did some kind of custom art tour, that would be awesome. All I saw was some guy at NYCC selling ridiculously overpriced customs of existing characters. $1000 for a set of okay Ninja Turtles.
I’m still not on board with Uni-formz and Subcasts, though.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I saw him at an art opening for a friend and I was basically asking him about the lame designs for Labbit stools they put out. He told me he wasn’t too happy with them and that all of the designs he submits to KR(60+ I think he said), they always choose the easiest to produce, solid one color style. I told him I thought Paul Bunditz seems more interested in having Lindsay Lohan or some bad rapper in his tshirts than putting out anything original anymore. Frank smiled and told me he would buy me a drink if they weren’t already free. I still like KR a bunch, it just seems they seem to be getting away from their original fans like us and going in a different direction. Also I could care less about the Cartoon Network thing, I love Cartoon Network, the design just seems so unoriginal.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Ha! That is on point since Budnitz blogs every time a Hilton or a Lohan wears his threads. Although, devil’s advocate again: if say, Christina Ricci wore my logo, I’d not only blog it, but also shout it from the rooftops.
February 25th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
If Christine Ricci wore my ANYTHING I’d be the happiest boy in the world.
February 26th, 2009 at 6:13 am
Yeah Christina Ricci is on a whole nother level than Paris or Lohan, on that note I wish Christina Ricci would wear me
…
February 26th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Maybe if we casually keep mentioning her name, Christina Ricci, her Google Alert will pick it up and she’ll become aware of designer toys, their fans, their store ninjas and their journalists. We didn’t ask for anything and we got Rosie O’Donnell. So now that we’re asking for someone, Christina Ricci, let’s see.