Visiting Mattel's Design Center to Celebrate He-Man's Birthday

gamerant.com:

This week, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe will be turning 40. It isn’t often that an IP gets to make it to 10 years, let alone 40, so for this occasion, the company behind MOTU (as it is affectionately called) wanted to do something special. They invited Game Rant for a rare tour of the Mattel Design Center in Southern California, an opportunity that younger versions of ourselves could only dream of.

The goal: to highlight the various parts of the Mattel Design Center that help make Masters of the Universe toys. From concept to finished product, the tour encompassed a lot of cool stops along the way and culminated in a live panel with some of the designers that bring He-Man, Skeletor, and everyone in between to life in plastic form.

Because this was a celebration of Masters of the Universe, the focus of the tour was kept on He-Man and Co. Anything Barbie, Hot Wheels, or in-between was not necessarily off limits in terms of what we could see, but it was not a focus of the visit. So, while we were able to get a unique peek behind a few curtains at Mattel, there are still plenty of mysteries left for another day.

Although this isn’t where Mattel literally manufactures its toys, almost all the creative processes seem to take place in the Design Center (now known as the Handler Team Center). Walking through a massive building lined with cubicles, the Design Center looks a lot like any other business at first glance. But every cubicle, desk, and open space is lined with toys, prototypes, and branding. There may still be a lot of work that goes on at the Mattel Design Center, but there is plenty of play that takes place as well.

The first stop on the tour was a visit to the recording studio inside the Mattel Design