Fisher-Price: the Fold-n-Go Workbench!

This project brings back memories when I look at it, as do many projects throughout the years.  It may also trigger the memory of some readers, it goes back to when many were just kids.
Often it's the project itself that leaves an impression on me, sometimes it's about other things going on in my life at the time.  In this case, I had just moved to Oak Park, Illinois after spending 9 years living in Philadelphia.  We were also expecting our second child and I was busy trying to get work while settling into my attic studio, then recently completed.  It was a great space, well laid out, and I was champing at the bit to give it a road test.

It was around this time that I started getting work from Fisher-Price in East Aurora.
A few of the designers there started calling on me pretty regularly and I really hit my stride in delivering solid work in a quick fashion.  The Fold-n-Go Workbench was one of those early experiences of a project coming and going fast, with the end product turning out pretty close to my design. Like in most cases, if there wasn't a foam-core model all I had to work with was a thumbnail and a description of the functions. 
If there were any rough passes for this they're long gone.  I don't recall doing anything beyond a couple of clean line drawings followed by a rendering, which at the time would be sent via Fed-Ex.  I had a new Mac G4 but was just starting to scan and email jpegs,  I wasn't fully versed in Photoshop. In fact, the rendering below is a re-render done digitally some time back, since the original was sent off to Fisher-Price.
.. I do remember the original was rendered in marker, something you don't see much anymore.

 




























Here is how it turned out back then when it was produced by Fisher-Price;

.. And as of this writing, my younger of 2 children is on his own and in college.

The years do fly.