Stuffed Creature Design Part VII

You have reached The Stuffed Animal Review, a publication dedicated to the analysis of stuffed creature design and their larger worlds.  For first-time readers, a fuller explanation of The Review’s purpose can be found on the “Philosophy” page.

The Review’s guide to high-quality stuffed animal design is growing.  Tremendous, and sometimes strange territory has been covered, from fundamental principles to considerations of fur, softness, and size [see the “Core Principles” page for a summary.]

Today The Review submits Stuffed Creature Design Part VII: Stuffed Creature Accessories, which puts clothing in the hot seat. 
The most common stuffed creature accessory is clothing: t-shirts, pants, overalls, etc.  Clothing bothers The Review on multiple fronts. 

First, clothes attempt to preordain a stuffed creature’s personality, locking your furry companion into a designated role.  Stuffed creatures should be unconstrained, and play should not be artificially predetermined. 

Figure 1 is a galling example of clothing accessories creating an overly oppressive personality for a stuffed creature.   How can you get beyond the ill-fitting chef’s outfit?  What is this bear to do besides make pizzas? 

Figure 1

Second, clothing crosses a line between animal and human.  If you want to play dress-up, try to the doll section of the toy-store.

The bear in Figure 2 is clothed in an outfit a mother would choose for her little princess.  Cute on a two-year old girl, perhaps, or porcelain doll, but why subject this bear to human clothing?

Figure 2

Third, it interferes with the sensory experience of your stuffed creature’s fur.  Fur can range from soft to velvety and adds much to the comforting pleasure of owning a stuffed animal.  Why hide this appealing feature?

And fourth, most stuffed creatures adorned with shirts and pants are gift bears or business/organization lines, the kinds bought for Valentines Day, graduations, birthdays, and get well occasions, or the kinds colleges and businesses use as marketing and branding tools.  Most are uninspired designs and of unsatisfactory quality – a banal creature draped in banal greetings, sayings, or institutional affiliations. 

The bear in Figure 3 easily slides under the category “uninspired.”  A potentially cute face is plopped onto a mis-proportioned body: awkwardly long legs and over-sized, undefined paws that call to mind the word “stump.”  Just one more mediocre creature sacrificed on the altar of themed commercialization.

Figure 3

Shameless advertising by Harley Davidson [Figure 4].  If you are going to create a stuffed creature solely for marketing purposes, the least you could do is make a pleasing, well-designed animal.  The probable inspiration for this pig: a beautiful, blue-eyed biker chick.  That image is all well and good, but should be confined to pin-up calendars and motorcycle magazines.  It does not make for a good stuffed creature.  This is, after all, a pig, and the eye-lashed, twinkle blue eyes are incongruous.

Figure 4

Next Saturday: The Review continues its analysis of Stuffed Creature Accessories by exploring all that is wrong with stuffed creature props.