Dora the Explorer CD Boombox

Okay, I know some of you might instantly think, "it's a kids toy, it doesn't matter if it looks bad." and while I understand what you mean, I disagree.

This radio-CD player is made for people who may not necessarily have the refined tastes of us adults. However that doesn't mean we can dump this badly designed, badly crafted junk on them. The thing is terrible. For starters, I saw a much better made Barbie one right next to it for 10 bucks less. Bargain, right?! In fact, I'll upload a picture of that radio too, so you can see how a kids radio can be done better.

Here's what I don't like about it.
1. The color scheme was the first thing that drew me to be repelled here. The model I saw in the shop, with purple and yellow flowers on a green leaf, with a pink body, and lots of blue bits too, just didn't seem to have any color palette in mind. It seems the designer thought, "kids like bright primary and secondary colors, I'll just throw a bunch of those on there." and was done with it. He didn't try to show some harmony between the seperate parts of the design, he just gave them all different colors. Compare this to the Barbie design. It knows who it's aimed at, young girls. The color scheme reflects this well, and holds the whole design together, rather than turning it into a mess of plastic panels.
2. The font is inappropriate. There's no fun here. A kid is not going to see the bland "PROG." label, let alone enjoy it or understand the instruction being provided. They tried so hard to stimulate the kids with the whacky colors, but when it comes to labelling the buttons, they use the most sensible, boring typeface they could find. It feels like this was added on at the very last second.
3. The plastic panels don't quite seem to fit properly. There are parts (ie, behind the flower) where there are gaps between plastic pieces and sometimes the edges don't line up in a way that looks accidental.
4. The printed CD lid. Firstly, the print quality seems a little lacking, and secondly it doesn't match the style of the rest of the radio. It stands out as though it were added only to make it into Dora merch.
5. The little frequency indicator suffers the same problem as the text. It may be difficult to see in these photos, but it is black and white, with a similar plain font and a red bar. Not very exciting, and it stands out in a bad way.

Compare this to the Barbie design. It has a color scheme which brings the whole design together, the parts actually fit together, and the labels are more appropriate. Much nicer.

And when it comes down to it, this is what a kid wants. Kids don't shop for value-for-money, or functionality, they just want something that looks cool. For this particular audience, design is important, and the people who made the Dora radio have probably lost a few customers.