TaLamia,The B-Tech degree is a year or two for some, where the designer chooses any subject matter and does a years worth of research and design work.
We get professional assistance by our lecturers who help guide us in the right direction…this is the direction that the lecturers and i have agreed on taking. basically this is just a small part of the huge amount of research i am still yet to do. thanks for the concern TaLamia, but i am well aware of what i am getting myself into and i invite you to come check out the exhabition at the end of the year if you are in durban.
thanks to those who have already replied… i have got allot of information to sift through this week.

Hi there, first off I am the hugest plush fan ever and it’s great to see someone taking a commercial interest in it on a tertiary level. That said, I don’t think you can use these kinds of questions to create the ultimate plush that will sell. Plush, like their sibling items the vinyl toy, depends heavily on intuitive emotional investment from the consumers side. It is not something formulaic, although some characteristics have consistently done well since the inception of the concept of the modern toy, and you either have a knack at it or you don’t. I just feel these questions you ask are only good for a questionaire type thesis, and if that’s what you are doing then I wish you luck, otherwise if not I’d say drop the questions and look up academic research done on product design (there’s tons of info out there, my thesis touched upon alot of them).