Jenny Faw…Dibzy, Jenny Faw Designs and What Every Toy Inventor Should Know
Jenny Faw grew up in Manhattan, Kansas. She is now based in Providence, Rhode Island. Jenny lives in the boiler room of a former textile mill. So she inspired by nature, flowers, sunshine, ocean, sky, and especially animals! Jenny likes to pretend she is the great granddaughter of Henri Matisse. His passion for pattern and color, as well as his native technique and prolific style has always resonated with her. Jenny is a self-taught artist who joyfully breaking the rules of design.
Jenny Faw is a product designer with a 20 year track record of creating and producing top selling products for the infant and children’s home furnishings industry in addition to the gift, tabletop, bath and décor categories. Her products have been sold at Target, Babies ”R” Us, Bed Bath and Beyond, Buy Buy Baby and many other stores.
She has licensed her own creations under the Jenny Faw label, as has partnered with manufacturers, major retailers, and China-based trading companies. Jenny has worked for major manufacturers during her career including Hallmark, Current, Mickey and Company, and Summer Infant.
Jenny designs and consults with inventors, manufacturers and retailers for brand identity, design and product development. Her clients include: Target, Baby’s Journey, Dorel, Hasbro, Sassy, and more.
The Invention Stories Podcast Episode 46 Recap
Jenny Faw grew up in Manhattan, Kansas. She was a very creative child always drawing, always doodling. Jenny was born into an academic family, her father was a nuclear engineer and a professor and mother a theater major. She traveled overseas with her father and that sparked her lifelong interest in the outside world.
Jenny attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence, which host a design school heavily funded by Hallmark. So she felt like she attended the right college.
Upon graduation, Jenny worked at Hallmark and later became VP of Fashion for Summer Infant. She was charge of product development and fashion and her focus was the mom-baby-kid space.
Jenny enjoys art directing and helping and promoting people. She believes the keys to becoming an expert in the toy industry come from understand product development and manufacturing. And most of all understanding how retail and manufacturers work, including all the details involved.
Following her experience at Summer Infant, Jenny and two of her friends, who would later become her business partners at Dibzy attended the All Baby and Child show in Las Vegas. Their goal was to drum up some consulting work. They learned there was a real need to help inventors connect with the best manufactures for them. In addition, there was a need to help inventors get their dreams market ready. And that’s how Dibzy was born.
Jenny explains in detail how Dibsy was formed. It was to help inventors launch the ideas that manufactures would like to have dibs on. The URL is GetDibzy.com.
Some of the questions that I ask Jenny in this interview are:
How is Dibzy different than her own Jenny Faw Designs?
What advice would Jenny give to someone has very limited experience and has an idea for an invention?
How do you know if the idea you have is good?
What trends do you see in the toy industry currently?
Why are boardgames so popular today?
How would you approach designing a game?
If you had created a game, would you try to manufacture it yourself or seek out a licensing agreement?
