Matt Burtonwood

Ahead of its debut at Toy Fair next week, Open 2’s Matt Burtonwood reveals why Golden Bear is the perfect home for his latest party game.

This year’s Play Creators Conference is taking place at London’s Stamford Bridge Stadium on Wednesday, June 28th.

Open 2 Design’s Matt Burtonwood shines a spotlight on the challenges around finding new design hires – and details what he looks for when it comes to fresh talent.

In this month’s Talking Games feature, Spin Master’s Dougal Grimes, Peggy Brown Creative Consulting’s Peggy Brown, Open 2 Design’s Matt Burtonwood and Galactic Sneeze’s Sara Farber discuss creating great games based on brands.

We speak with Matt Burtonwood about the origins of Open 2, its move into invention – and what the future holds.

How has lockdown changed how toy and game inventors pitch their concepts? What are some of the pros and cons of showing off ideas virtually? And what impact has the pandemic situation had on how inventors fuel their creativity? All this and more is explored in our ‘Pitching in Uncertain Times’ panel.

The session will be chaired by Erik Quam, Director of Product Development at Fat Brain Toys.

As the co-founder of Open 2 Design, Matt Burtonwood is the brains behind a number of popular products. Recently, he and his business partner began pitching their own ideas, including the much-celebrated Rubik’s Cage.

The session will give an in-depth guide as to what life as a toy designer and freelance inventor looks like, delving into the various routes recent graduate can take to give themselves the best chance of working in the toy space.

“It’s integral that, as an industry, we do all we can do to encourage a fresh wave of product design talent to choose the toy and game space as a career destination,” said Billy Langsworthy, co-founder of Mojo Nation.