Kyle Kesterson
Case study · Physical product

Funko

One of three original developers of the POP! line. 300+ physical products shipped across more than 60 global licensors.

RoleToy Developer & Product Designer
Dates2007–2009
Shipped300+ products · 60+ licensors
Kyle in front of a wall of POP! figures, pointing at the collection
300+ products Every one of these started as a drawing that had to survive sculpt, tooling, paint and packaging with the joke intact.
01

What it was

A vinyl figure line designed to cut mould costs during the recession and built to hold a $10–15 retail price at Target and Walmart scale, across hundreds of licensors at once. I was the third toy developer at Funko, and one of three original developers of the POP! line.

Most people don't know this, but the final Pop! figure design was a combination of the evolution of its predecessors, the Funko Nodniks and Plushies with a dash of Hello Kitty.

02

Before Funko, how I learned to make things

Brand and identity at Urban Influence Design Studio by day. Nights in sign shops, printed and cut vinyl, silkscreening, physical fabrication.

Then working with a well-known ceramist: clay, glaze, kiln, and the specific humility of a material that fails in the firing after all the work is done.

Materials before pixels. By the time I got to injection and roto-moulding at Funko, I already knew what it felt like when a physical process refuses your drawing.

The gate system

Four to nine months, and every gate can send you back.

Each step is a checkpoint where the licensor or Funko can reject. Packaging and deco run in parallel inside the in-mould window, racing sign-off against a live production clock.

01 Licensor concept approval the property says yes
02 Detailed sculpt ZBrush, must release from steel
03 3D-printed prototype first physical read
04 Figure approval licensor sign-off
05 Mould cutting 30–45 day window
06 Prototype approval last exit
07 Production run pallets, not pieces
Parallel · 30–45 days Packaging & deco developed while the mould is being cut, the only compression available in the whole schedule.
03

Constraint as a design discipline

Sculptors used to work originals in clay until ZBrush came around. We had to think in terms of what a steel or 3D-printed mould can physically release. Nothing survives that is not manufacturable.

The material palette was deliberately narrow, PVC injection and roto-moulding, HDPE blister, acrylic paint, because that is what holds a $10–15 SKU at mass-retail scale. A narrow palette is not a limitation to escape; it is the thing that makes the price possible.

The seamless head is a materials constraint solved through roto-moulding. An aesthetic that came out of a fabrication limitation rather than the other way around.

Sketchbook page: thumbnails, a three-view turnaround, an ink pass and two colourways with one crossed out
Where it starts Thumbnails, a three-view turnaround, an ink pass, various colourways. Everything goes downstream from the concept.
Sample-room tray of unpainted parts, an open two-part mould, gloved hands trimming flash
PVC MOULD CASTING The two-part mould with the head cavity, a tray of raw pulls, and flash being trimmed by hand. This is the gate everything has to physically survive.
A half-painted resin master held in hand beside its colour callout sheet
Paint master and callout Half-painted master beside the callout sheet it is being matched to, deco developed in parallel with the mould and up to a hundred different figures in production at a time with a 3-person artist team.
A halftone window box beside its dieline printout
Box and dieline The window box next to its flat dieline. Packaging is the other half of the schedule.
04

What broke

Losing a licence mid-line, tooling cut, deco approved, and the property gone. Recurring QC problems in overseas production. A lot of wasted material.

The rule that came out of it: on a licensed line, the risk you cannot design around is the licence itself. Sequence the moulds so a cancellation costs one SKU, not the whole wave.

Outcome
300+

Products shipped

60+

Global licensors

4–9 mo

Concept to shelf

$10–15

Retail price held

Next: Teaching