From an Early Age, This Alum Had Focus

When he was 5 years old, DAAP alum Steve Bono began his drive to be a toy maker. That's when he was the first child in his neighborhood with a new - and coveted - toy thanks to a neighbor who worked for a one-time Cincinnati toy maker.

If you remember a 1970s television program called "The Six Million Dollar Man," you'll recall that the main character had robotic limbs for super strength and a robotic eye for seeing across great distances.

The action figure based on the show's main character appropriately had an eye that a child could look through to achieve "telescopic" vision.

University of Cincinnati industrial design alumnus Steve Bono had just such an action figure, and when he looked through its "robotic" eye, he could clearly see his distant career: Toy maker.
Steve Bono
DAAP alum and toy designer Steve Bono at a Transformers convention posing with a Tranformer he designed.

Bono, 41, design manager with Hasbro, Inc., in Pawtucket, R.I., easily recalls that long-ago start to his dream of creating toys: "On our street lived a lady who was in Kenner's marketing department. She brought home toys and allowed neighborhood kids to play with them as part of her test-marketing role. I was given the action figure from 'The Six-Million Dollar Man.' I got to play with it for a week, and then, she interviewed me. Nobody else had it (the action figure), and I got to tell someone what I thought. From that time on, I knew I wanted to work at a toy company."

Though, he admits, it required some perseverance to arrive at his destination.

Bono, originally from Cincinnati's Western Hills neighborhood, entered UC's internationally top-ranked industrial design program in the university's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning in 1986. He remembers the UC program as "intense. The most challenging was the all nighters and the pace. People were very talented and competitive there. My fellow students were impressive people creating equally impressive products."

Because of that, by the time graduation rolled around in 1991, he still hadn't earned a single working position with a toy maker through UC's top-ten ranked cooperative education program. (Cooperative education, or co-op as it is called, is the practice wherein students alternate quarters or semesters in the classroom with quarters or semesters of paid, professional work related directly to their majors. UC design students generally graduate with about 18 months of paid, industry experience on their resumes.)
Steve Bono
DAAP alum and toy designer Steve Bono at work in his Hasbro office.

While still a student, he remembers interviewing for just such a coveted co-op position with Kenner Products, a one-time toy maker headquartered in Cincinnati: "About 15 of us students interviewed for that co-op job. It was a primo co-op job, paid well, so there was a lot of competition. They picked my best friend for the job. Not me. I was crushed at the time."

After graduating UC in 1991, it took Bono four years to work his way into the toy industry, but that effort taught him the value of persistence. He states, "I learned that perseverance can get you where you need to go. I've seen many fellow designers succeed similarly because of perseverance. It's not about being flashy or being labeled a 'talent.' It's about working at it."

It was while "working at it" as a freelance designer for corporate clients like The Procter & Gamble Company that Bono saw a newspaper ad for a pattern designer. Though the ad didn't state the employer's name, he recognized the address in the ad: Kenner Toys (now Hasbro, Inc.).

It was 1995. Bono applied and got the job, and has worked on numerous successful toy design projects since, including many associated with popular movies.

He readily admits that his favorite toy design was a 2002 effort that resulted in an 18-inch, interactive R2-D2 robot from the "Star Wars" movies. The robot moves under its own power and responds to a dozen commands associated with the original "Star Wars" movie. For instance, it will play Princess Leia's distress message from the original movie or will dance (spin around) to the cantina tune from the film.
Steve Bono
DAAP alum Steve Bono with his favorite toy design, a 2002 interactive R2-D2.

It's Bono's favorite because "it was the most complex, the biggest project I'd ever worked on and the most fun. Also, my nephews still play with it... . That means it's popular with the toughest critics."

Other action figures were developed from

  • "Batman: The Animated Series" (on TV 1992-1995)
  • "Batman Forever" with Val Kilmer (1995) and "Batman & Robin" with George Clooney (1997)
  • "Jurassic Park III" (2001)
  • "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (2008)
    Work by Steve Bono
    A board by Steve Bono depicting Duke, a character in "G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra."

For the last two years, Bono has been the head designer for the figure known internationally as "Action Man." Children in the United States may not know this character, but children in Europe do. He is the European version of G.I. Joe, first introduced in the 1960s. In addition, Bono has worked the last couple of years on action figures associated with the just-released August 2009 film "G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra."

Even though it was the latest in a long string of successful toy designs over the past 14 years, Bono says he feels just as excited about this latest project as he did to do his first toy project: "I'd tell anyone to get involved in a field that interests you. I wanted to do this since childhood, and it's a great position to be in to do what you want every day. It's been almost 20 years since I graduated from UC, but it feels like 20 days."

It would seem that like the 5-year-old he once was, Bono is still using that "telescopic" eye - only this time, he's looking through it backward at his years as a toy designer.