A toymaker creates or manufactures toys for children of all ages. Working as a toymaker can entail anything from hand-crafting wooden toys in the traditional artisan style to creating new board games. Toymakers can come from a wide range of backgrounds, including engineering and art, and can work for themselves or for toy companies.
For thousands of years, people have been making toys. Toys are frequently thought of as simple forms of entertainment for children, though they can also entertain adults, and they are also intellectually valuable. Play is beneficial to young children’s cognitive and social development, and it can also serve as an icebreaker for adults. A toymaker usually has a sense of play or an interest in cognitive development, or they may simply have a great idea for a toy and the desire to pursue it.
Toy designers use a variety of media to develop new toys, prototype them, and eventually put them into production. Toys range in complexity from simple dolls with no moving parts to complex mechanical sets with configurable moving parts, all of which are intended to spark interest in engineering and mechanics. People with experience in a variety of industries can design and develop toys successfully.
A skilled toymaker either creates or capitalizes on a trend, ensuring that the products he or she designs are market-ready. Some toymakers specialize in educational toys, which are designed to be used in educational settings or to stimulate intellectual development, while others may be more interested in more general toys or a specific area of the toy industry, such as making models, board games, or replicas of old-fashioned toys and games.
People can also make toys without taking part in the creation process. Toy fabrication requires a high level of skill, especially when mass production is involved, so toy companies hire woodworkers, metalworkers, and a variety of other professionals to work on their production lines. Handmade toys command a higher price, and studying toymaking in a traditional shop can provide people with highly marketable skills.
Toy repair is also done some toymakers. Several museums have toy curators on staff who are familiar with the objects in their collections as well as the repair of a wide range of toys from different periods of history, repairing or restoring toys in the museum’s collection. Repair specialists can work for themselves in small shops or for toy companies that offer warranties on their products. A toymaker’s career in repair typically begins with an apprenticeship in a toy shop or professional-level training in a college or university to learn about proper antique maintenance, restoration, and repair.