Ben Butcher on the values and vision for his new collectibles company, Kaleidos Creative

Ben, it’s always lovely to catch up. Before we dive into your exciting new venture, can you talk me through your key ‘career beats’ up to this point?
I’ve been in toys and collectibles for 28 years now! I started in 1996 at Disney Store, coming from a background at fine art school and animation school. I was there for five years and then I joined Pixar. I spent 12 years there as Creative Director of Consumer Products, learning from the greatest storytellers in the world. It was an amazing time; it was the golden years of Pixar really… I got there when Monsters Inc was launching was there through Nemo, WALL-E, Incredibles and Cars.

From there I jumped to Funko as its SVP of Creative. I joined in 2013 when it was a small company – we had seven people in the art department. Fast forward 10 years and we had around 100 people in the art department. It was a fun process to be a part of, switching from being on the side where people created content to the side where we made product. That brings us to now with the launch of Kaleidos Creative.

Amazing. And yes, talk us through what Kaleidos Creative is and the sorts of products you’ll be making?
In 2023 I took some time off to take stock and figure out what I wanted to do next. With companies, and the way the world is going, I felt things were getting lost… The importance of people, the importance of ideas, the importance of creativity… 

I reconnected with Mike McBreen – who I had worked with earlier in my career – and we started talking about what we wanted to do… We still loved the idea of creating products and creating content – and we felt there was still a huge white space within the collectibles industry… But ultimately, we wanted it to be artist-focused; people-focused. We wanted to do something that was more than just a transactional thing… How do we give back? How do we make this more interesting for the people collecting and the people creating? That was the starting point – can we do something different?

And where will your products sit on that line from designer toys to mass market collectibles?
The goal is to focus on Direct to Consumer and Specialty Retail. We will also attend conventions where we can connect with collectors and other artists. We don’t have plans to sell our products in mass retail as it is very important for us to build up equity within the design community and the collectible space first. Ultimately, we want to grow this the right way with our own IP and by controlling where our products are sold. We believe the best way to do this is by being particular about what you produce, why you produce and how you present it.

I was going to ask, are those spaces blurring? Can you have the sensibilities of the art toy scene and the reach of mass market collectibles?
Yes, I think you can have both. It is a blurred line but needs a strong foundation built first. One of our key inspirations is Pop Mart out of China. They built their foundations on artists and original IP – then they fold in licensed products where it felt right as they were growing. There isn’t a lot of that happening in the Western collectibles space at the moment. It’s very license-driven heavy. We wanted to take a group of artists, create a bunch of original IP and then look for opportunities to introduce these characters and stories to the world. We’re all fans of licensed stuff but there’s just so much of it. We wanted to create new properties and worlds that are new and fresh.

Can you talk us through the development process behind your first few launches? What does this artist-first approach look like in practice?
There were two aspects of product development that I knew were going to be key from my previous experiences. One, the relationship with the factory. Traditionally, you scope out factories and find the best price, but I always felt there was something missing with that process… Anytime I’ve gone to China or Vietnam to meet with the factories the biggest takeaway has always been how amazing the people are who produce all of the products.

I had been working with a company called Goldwing run by a friend of mine named Calvin Tsang. He manufactures stuff for NECA, Hasbro… Beautiful stuff. I asked him if he was interested in doing anything besides manufacturing and he said he wanted to be a part of something – not just manufacture stuff. So I wanted to bring him and them in, and they’ve come on board as one of our biggest investors. This means we have an amazing factory that’s actually part of the company – that’s been a huge, cool thing to do.

So that was the first important step. Then we got our team together which comprised of artists and creative people that had all worked together at some point. Collectively we wanted to do something where everyone has an equal voice and there’s full transparency across the board. This way everyone is invested in the entire process together.

And then the third part was retail. We wanted a launching point that made sense for what we were creating. I connected with Steve Vranes, the CEO of Hot Topic and talked him through our vision and he was onboard right away. He’s an amazing person doing some very cool things, both in-store but also in the community. We worked with them and set up a partnership – and all this happened before we had any concepts on paper! We just had a company name! This meant we had someone to make it and someone to sell it…

And now you just needed product ideas!
Exactly! Mike has a beautiful place on the Oregon coast so we took the team there right at the beginning to spend time together and work out what this was all going to be! It was very therapeutic! We exorcised demons from art school and past jobs… And we all opened up our vaults. We asked: What have you always wanted to create? And it all came together naturally; it was beautiful.

What did that kind of open creative process look like? Were there any ‘guiderails’?
We knew we’d do form factors. We knew we’d do blind boxes. We knew we’d do vinyl. But within that, everyone just started drawing. We then got back together and started putting ideas up on the wall. What’s amazing is that we had so many amazing ideas coming from every single person. I have never been so inspired in my life. The freedom and camaraderie was bringing out incredible fun and original characters and stories. Everyone blew me away. They all just went for it and we ended up with 80 new ideas.

80! How did you whittle them down?
Together we looked at all of them and threw out ideas on which ones were working and which ones weren’t. Having a safe space where you can share ideas and opinions might be the most important part of the creative process. We then sat with the Hot Topic and Box Lunch teams and pitched them all of our ideas. They helped pick a handful and that’s what we went away and developed.

Amazing. And when was this?
Earlier this year. Early February. By March we were starting to sculpt and we launch at Designer Con in mid-November.

Yes, that’s just around the corner. What makes Designer Con an apt place to debut your products?
It comes back to your question about mass market vs designer vinyl. You want to get the equity of the designer toy world by having integrity and authenticity. In mass, you want price point, convenience and availability. So there’s a balance between the two… We want to be accessible, but we’re artist-led and we need to connect with an audience that resonates with our ideas first. Designer Con seemed like the perfect place for that. We are launching completely different products at Designer Con from what we are doing at retail to help establish our teams vision.

Yes! We’re going to do a deep dive into your retail range in January’s Mojo Nation Magazine. But sticking with Designer Con, what are you launching there?
We’re launching designer toys from our artists – and there’s no rules. They’ve made whatever they wanted to. We have five or six different characters – and an exclusive version of each of those for Designer Con. They’re all very personal to each artist. Mine is a pangolin named Cosmo in a tie-dye hoodie. I love pangolins and have wanted to make something that would introduce people to these amazing creatures. The thing I am most excited about is that we are going to be giving 5% of those sales to “savepangolins.org”.

Very cool! What do you feel is the key appeal of designer toys? What about this space resonates with people – especially designers?
It’s the freedom of expression. In the designer toy world, there’s a vast number of ways that people approach creating this stuff. You can go and find things that resonate to you in a personal way. And then there’s the community. There’s a real community around this space that is supportive of each other.

What do you feel makes certain designer toys take off? What makes certain form factors cut through?
I wish I had the answer to that! I believe it comes down to appeal – and universal appeal. I can’t really tell you what that means because it is different to each and every person, but if it’s genuine and comes from your heart, it’ll resonate. That could be the shape, or the deco, or the character… Some get to that upper tier because they have such a clean form factor that it allows everyone to find a deco that they can connect to… Others, it’s more about the appeal of the character. All of us respond to different things in this space – and that’s the beauty of it.

I have two final questions! What fuels your creativity? And what kills creativity?
Other creativity fuels me. Could be spotting cool packaging for something in the grocery store… Or movies, TV shows, music – music is huge… Fine art… Books about art… I love early Eastern European children’s books. I’m inspired by the way other people interpret the world. And being surrounded by things that excite you. It could be nostalgic or something that led you to this point. I’m constantly filling my space – I’m more of a maximalist than a minimalist!

In terms of what kills creativity… Too much direction in terms of trying to find the perfect answer to something. “It needs to hit this market or appeal to this specific demographic”. If you do too much of that, you can stifle creativity… Parameters lead to creative solutions, but creativity needs more freedom than the search for a perfect answer will allow.

“Creativity needs more freedom than the search for a perfect answer will allow.” We’re not going to do better than that Ben! Perfect place to wrap up. A big congrats again on the launch of Kaleidos – let’s tie-in again soon!

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