1. DECO3100 infostudio2008
Assignment 1 – Taxonomy
Stephanie Patel (306168065)

3. Characteristics of plush toys
• Representation • Additional accessories
(animal/human/fruit)
• Additional purposes
• Merchandise category • Colour
(cartoon/brand mascot/occasion/sport
mascot/promotion) • Gender orientation
• Part of a set/individual • Period of ownership
• Country of production company • Bought/Gift
• Where was it made? • Favourability
• Material
(cotton/polyester/nylon/plastic)
• Texture
(fur/fabric)
• Softness

4. Visualisations & analysis (1)
Production network
• Determine major contributor in the
production of plush toys
Main production market - Asia
• Do most production companies
resort to off-shore (often cheaper)
labour? YES

5. Visualisations & analysis (2)
Gender, Context & Colour
• General representation VS
gender orientation
• Range of representation VS
gender orientation
• Gender orientation VS
colour
• Usually no target gender,
however more direction towards
female target (than male)
• Majority of representation is
some sort of animal
• No connection between
gender/colour, although are
brown (teddy bear)

6. Visualisations & analysis (3)
Merchandise category dependencies
• Are alternate purposes added to a plushies marketed towards certain
merchanise categories? YES
• Is a plushie more likely to be marketed in a set rather than individually in certain
merchandise categories? YES

7. Visualisations & analysis (4)
Favourability dependencies
• Does the fact that a plushie is a gift/bought affect how favourable it is? YES
• Does favourability increase/decrease over time?

8. Visualisations & analysis (4)
Composition
Relationship between material, texture & softness rating
Soft
Cotton
Polyester
Nylon
Plastic
Hard

9. Visualisations & analysis (4)
Merchandise category
• Is a particular merchandise category:
– targeted towards a specific gender? SOME
– primarily consists of similar plush toy representations? MOST

10. Taxonomy
• Representation/Colour/Gender
– general (animal/human/fruit)
– specific
• Context
– Merchandise category (cartoon/brand
mascot/occasion/sport mascot/promotion)
– Set/individual
• Production
– Origin of company
– Place of production
• Composition
– Material (cotton/polyester/nylon/plastic)
– Texture (fur/fabric) • Subjective/Personal characteristics
– Softness
– Period of ownership
• Additional – Bought/Gift
– Accessories
– Favourability
– purposes