A six-year-old boy is getting the chance to turn child's play into designing his favourite toys for a Canadian company that sells its Mega Bloks products in over 100 countries.
Iwan Lloyd Roberts was in Montreal at the head offices of Mega Brands on Wednesday to meet with the design team and present his concepts, which could be used in future company products.
The young boy, from the town of Pwllheli in northern Wales, was also given an all-access pass -- which was attached to his smart black blazer as he roamed about the building.
"It makes you go to some places only people important are supposed to go to," the boy said, thumbing the plastic swipe pass.
Roberts, who had been a fan of the Mega Bloks toys since the age of three, thought of ways to improve them while playing with his favourite models, Mega Bloks Dragons and Pirates.
Roberts would often swap pirate figure heads, paint characters different colours, and he created his own pirate shipyard.
Roberts' mother Elin Huw wrote to the Mega Brands company in the U.K. after she noticed her son's affinity for deconstructing the toys and adding his own ideas -- and his lack of desire to leave the creations and go to school.
"Iwan actually sent some beautiful sketches of new designs and ideas he had for Mega Bloks," Mega Brands CEO Marc Bertrand told CTV's Canada AM on Wednesday.
Roberts was invited to a toy fair in Britain earlier this year to meet with Bertrand and worked on concepts over the Christmas and New Year in preparation for the meeting.
"We showed him the whole 2007 product line coming out this Christmas, so he got to play with that and the more I spoke with Iwan, the more I saw he had a lot of great ideas for us at Mega Bloks," Bertrand said.
The company was so impressed they presented Roberts with its first "creative genius" award to recognize his potential as a toy designer.
They also brought him to Montreal to help the company stay one of the top 10 toy brands in the world.
"He tells me what he likes, and he tells me what he thinks we should be doing," Bertrand said.
"He's a real true builder -- and one of our best fans worldwide."
Roberts loves Mega Bloks so much he's collected every product -- his father had to build a special cupboard to accommodate all of the toys.
"You should see Iwan's bedroom, it's the most fascinating thing I've ever seen," Bertrand said. "It's filled with our dragons and pirates collection and he's actually made his own world out of that in his bedroom."
If Mega Brands decides to use Roberts' designs, they'll be a part of the toy company's Christmas 2008 collection.
With a report from CTV Montreal's Maya Johnson
