Furilla’s-Part Two
Finally the waiting is over, here is the second part of the Furilla interview.
A: Explain the history of the Furilla?
The less interesting truth…I was chasing this girl and I did have this dream of the Furilla exactly as he is. So I made one and gave it to her. I also made a few more and gave those to friends. Then in 2002 I entered a bunch of client based Industrial design projects and Furilla into the IDSA/ Business week design competition. We had done a line of furniture for Herman Miller that was very well received and several other good projects. We entered Furilla as sort of a joke to wake up the judges. It turns out Furilla won. I launched the website and Furilla kind of virally spread on the web. Then a few magazines then a few stores,etc.
A: For the people who have not come across the Furilla describe his personality and what he likes to get up to?
TO: Furillas are for the most very humble and fearless creatures. They are also humans with just a slight mutation.
Yeah sugar lump fight!
Whoever threw the sugar lump at me is gona get it!
oooops anyone for cream in their tea?
AD: The Furillas are perfect for animation,and I love the animated clips that people have sent in, what other animated characters do you like?
and which ones do you think Furilla would get along with?
TO: I really love the Happy Tree Friends, Space ghost, Harvey Birdman Atty at Law.Rumor has it Barbie is hot for Furilla. Furilla wants to do a movie wirth Davey and Goliath { the overtly religious claymation characters} but they are still in rehab.
A: What advise would you give other artist/designers who have come up with character designs and want to evolve them and sell them commercially?
TO: Mang{long for “man”}, I am still working on that as well, but I guess the main thing is to do it out of your own passion. Then don’t stop and maybe they will have some traction. We all need to remember these products and toys are little gifts to the world and it is likely there is a community ready to receive them.
AD: How did you go about finding a company to make them? and do you deal with the distribution side yourself?
TO: An Intern and I have done pretty much everything. You are the first to hear it but I recently agreed to license Furilla to KidRobot and they are going to manufacture and distribute Furilla’s to the world!
The tea party ends in total chaos
A: Did you have prior business experience?
TO: I did a Bicycle product called BIKEBARK in 1997 and licensed that.
I also did a licensing deal with Herman Miller as well.
A: What other people do you work with on this project and what are their backgrounds, how did you meet them?
For Furilla: Lori Katz, she acted as a great cheerleader to make sure I followed through.
Stephen Landau, Boy Genius, made the website! Rob Kendall made or helped make the better animated Furilla videos on the site!
A What recent design projects have you worked on?
We just did a push Lawn mower to combat energy scarcity, global warming, anda growingly less active population. We did a winter boot for Keen that should be available shortly.
A: Tell us about FUSE Industrial Design?
FUSE does client based opportunity finding and industrial design for corporations all over the world. Because of some of my Nike work we still do some footwear.
A: What does the future hold for Tory and Furilla?
When we are not doing client based work we continue to create proactive Science projects {whether toys or products} that hopefully entertain and/or provide salient solutions to problems.
For more information about Furilla and Tory Orzeck
www.furilla.com
www.myspace.com/furilla
