June 10, 2008 : Flux test run failure
How come the Flux Capacitor doesn’t work in my car? I hooked it up to the car’s main computer and took the old Mazda up to 88mph, but nothing happened. Oh well. Now, I wonder how I’m going to pay for that speeding ticket…
June 9, 2008 : Wolverine articulation comes into focus
I am working on the Wolverine, Marvel Select Action figure and was wondering if the articulation points were correct.
Head/neck
shoulders
waist
hips
knees elbows
June 5, 2008 : “More than Meets the Eye”
Transformers is yet another passion of mine, I told you I was a dork. Ever since I started for the company I took over the Hasbro license for the most part and began designing my little heart out. We wanted a retro approach like the old boxes along with a modern type take on it. I started by looking over all the retro packaging for the old transformers. The boxes consisted of lots of grids, flat colors and art work from the movie/show. So keeping with that grid style and the classic colors we added some 3D elements (a grid with a lot of perspective) and some updated linear designs. Once we got it down after a few rounds of corrections we had something really great on our hands. My recent Star Scream Box received a 2008 American Inhouse Design Award from GD magazine. All the boxes have classic colors that match the team they are on: Autobots and Decepticons. As well they match on all sides as far as design goes, you can line them up on the sides and they will all have the same poses. Look to see Rumble, Arcee, and Ratchet soon!
June 4, 2008 : Star Wars quarter scale gets a voice
Today I finished the first pass of listening to all of the potential sound clips for the UQS SW line. You hear all these great lines in movies but you don’t realize how much background noise is there until you isolate them for a chip. The Ultimate Quarter Scale Star Wars figures we’re doing will all have sound effects.
June 1, 2008 : Homepage Design Evolution
The site was designed to serve the blogs: viewable by license, story type, art type, sculptor, etc., although the early comps don’t show that. The content had to be king. But we also wanted the design to be able to highlight the most important stories and features, look like a toy site, and retain an edge to honor Art Asylum’s heritage. So we built the homepage to work in thirds across the top, 1/3 on the left to accommodate the section features and 2/3 for the biggest stories and best pieces of design.
: Toy fans meet DSTJen
All kidding aside my Name is Jennifer Lleras (insert friendly hand shake here). I came to work with DST two years ago after I finished up with college and the inevitable graphic design chump work we all have to do to get our foot in the door. I have always been an artist and I became more focused on graphic design in high school when I realized that doing oil paintings wasn’t going to put food on my table, seeing how computers and I get along so well, it was a perfect fit.
Being part of the DST graphics team is to put it lightly is my dream job. There aren’t too many places where you can work on and around the ground floor of toy design. I get around as far as work goes, the other designers and I split up the awesomeness and we get to do our share of ads, boxes, marketing stuff and the like.


