Games Workshop Founder Backs New Creative Toy with the ‘Connect and Wow’ Factor
Added by Love Business East Midlands | 11 February 2015
UPDATED: 11 February 2015
FANTASY gaming veteran Ian Livingstone is backing a Nottingham entrepreneur’s fund-raising campaign for a new creative craft and construction toy.
Mr Livingstone CBE, who co-founded Games Workshop in the 1970s and later led the development of the Tomb Raider video game, has become non-executive chairman of a small business which makes Simbrix, a toy which enables users to make complex patterns and shapes out of small coloured beads.
The company, Simbrix, was started by Assim Ishaque and is based at the Nottingham Cleantech Centre off Ilkeston Road. The centre is part of Nottingham’s Creative Quarter initiative.
Now, following successful product testing, Mr Ishaque is hoping to raise £10,000 through a crowd-funding campaign on the Kickstarter website. The money will fund the first mass manufacturing run of the beads and enable Simbrix to be packaged for buyers.
“Simbrix is like a cross between fusion beads and Lego and is fun, creative and completely absorbing,” said Mr Ishaque. ”And we know from product testing at craft fairs that Simbrix has a massive appeal with people aged from five to 75.
“So the money raised from a crowd-funding campaign won’t be going into the development of prototypes - because we’ve already perfected the design using 400 prototypes over the past two years.
“Instead, the money will be funding the manufacturing of Simbrix so that kits can become available to buy at Amazon and eventually from High Street retailers.”
Mr Ishaque first met Ian Livingstone at the 2014 GameCity videogame festival in Nottingham.
“We had a stall set up where people could play with the beads and Ian Livingstone was one of the people who came over to see what the crowd was looking,“ said Mr Ishaque. “He started playing with the beads himself and became quite absorbed by them. He later introduced himself and asked me to send him some beads.”
Mr Livingstone, who won a BAFTA for services to the computer gaming industry, has since become non-executive chairman of Simbrix and described the product as a ‘brilliant construction toy.’
Simbrix was originally devised by Mr Ishaque at home as a way of improving the play experience of his own young children when they made patterns out of small fusion beads.
The problem was these beads was that the designs would easily fall apart if they were nudged or knocked until they were ironed into a permanent fused shape - leading to frustration and tears for his children. So Mr Ishaque set about devising a toy that didn’t fall to bits at the accidental shake of the kitchen table.
Mr Ishaque joined forced with Nottingham Trent University product design student Fardeen Sau, who helped get prototype beads ready for manufacturing tests during his placement year with Simbrix.
A £2,500 grant from the Manufacturing Advisory Service enabled them to manufacture beads for product testing and file a patent.
Simbrix beads currently come in several colours which can be locked together to produce an infinite variety of shapes and patterns. The beads can be ironed together, but don’t have to be, enabling creators to make permanent robust patterns that can be moved around but can also be taken apart and modified as needed.
A Simbrix kit will initially consist of 3000 beads and an ironing fabric in a cotton bag and will retail at around £25.
Mr Ishaque added:
“Our slogan for Simbrix is ‘Connect and Wow’ because it’s all about connecting the beads and preparing to be wowed.
“We think people of all ages will love connecting them and will enjoy uploading images of their creations to our website as part of a community of Simbrix users. We hope that the Kickstarter campaign will be just the start.”
Details of the Kickstarter campaign, to be launched in March 2015, can be seen on the Simbrix website
For more information and interviews please contact Assim Ishaque (pictured) 07976 878882 assim.ishaque@envirup.com
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