Who We Are
Rudell Design is a new product development and invention company primarily serving the toy industry. The company, in business since 1975, conceives and develops new toy, game, and related consumer products, presenting completed prototypes, drawings and video presentations to manufacturer/clients typically for royalty licensing. Over the years we've done some creative business deals that have resulted in mutual benefit for all parties. We think the Business of Invention can be as creative as Product Invention. Rudell Design has been responsible for the successful development and commercializaton of hundreds of millions of dollars of consumer products.
In addition to its extensive internal development capabilities and experience, Rudell Design has also coordinated and overseen outside professional development groups on multiple projects, in some cases remaining involved all the way to, and then through, production and promotional product launch. We've consulted for clients and companies way larger than ourselves.
Although the company’s primary consumer product development focus and strengths lie in the conception-development-licensing sequence, over the years Rudell Design has been involved in virtually every phase of the product development adventure, from original brainstorm conception through product feasibility evaluation, breadboard and preliminary model and 2-dimensional presentation development, licensing (including complex license negotiations), post-licensing production design and engineering, packaging conception, copywriting, voice and sound recording and programming, and even TV shoot coordination. We've sat behind mirrors during kid-testing, flown late night flights to Asia, watched parades of our products down Fifth Avenue. Elliot has written patents, Patent Office responses, and is cited on more than 150 patents worldwide. Happily he is not an attorney. Nor is he intimidated by them. Some of his very best friends are or have been attorneys...
We’ve introduced large and small companies to other large and small companies, and represented toy clients to entertainment property licensors - in some cases being instrumental in obtaining approvals from entertainment licensors for our toy company clients. Hey, we worked with Steve Spielberg on "HOOK" movie product.
It all sounds real tidy, professional, and buttoned-up - and then we remember painting models in the back of a van (on the way up the freeway to a meeting), or gingerly walking art supplies through a machine gun-guarded third world nation border checkpoint (to work with a factory at the very last minute - seriously, this is the TOY industry...) and all of a sudden we come back to the sober reality that we simply do what it takes to make product happen.
The company has been honored in being rated one of the top toy development groups in the world, and has been showcased on E! ENTERTAINMENT'S "World's Coolest Toys". Elliot Rudell was inducted into the Hasbro Toy Inventor Hall Of Fame in 2001. Rudell Design's client list includes most major toy manufacturers in the world. Our products have been successfully marketed by licensees everywhere from Australia to Hungary, South Africa to Japan. There's been some kind articles online written about Rudell Design and Elliot Rudell. Google-search us if you like. We all know and love and trust the internet....
The company operates out of two locations, one in Franklin, TN and one in Southern CA - a modelshop and design facility about ten miles south of Los Angeles Airport. We've shed a bit of blood in our modelshop, tears at Toy Fair. It's been quite a ride. We thank God for every moment of the adventure.