Michelino Paolino
Michelino Paolino is a Senior Design Director at Hasbro and the current creative lead on the Transformers brand overall. He has held the position since 2014, inheriting the role from Joshua Lamb, though he has worked on the brand since at least 2010. Despite a respectable presence at conventions he largely operates under the fandom's radar, leaving collector face time to team members like Generations leads John Warden and Mark Maher. He played a significant role in the development of the BotBots franchise alongside senior marketing director Ben Montano.
As of 2024 Paolino has delegated stewardship of collector-focused toylines to ascendendant fellow Design Director John Warden to better focus on kids' franchises like EarthSpark (his true passion, if it wasn't clear from the BotBots thing) full time.<ref name ="TripleEvan">Interview with Hasbro designer Evan Brooks on the Triple Takeover podcast, from their YouTube channel</ref>
Known design projects
[edit]- Multiple toylines associated with the live-action film series.
- BotBots
- Legacy
- EarthSpark<ref name ="TripleEvan"/>
- Collaborative<ref name ="TripleEvan"/>
Convention appearances
[edit]Notes
[edit]- Current Generations lead Mark Maher cited Paolino as the impetus for the shake-up to return to Generations' grab-bag roots with the Legacy theme.<ref>Transformers panel at Pulse Con 2021.</ref>
- G.I. Joe character Agent Faces is named after (and seemingly modeled in the likeness of) Paolino.
- Paolino holds a variety of patents for his work at Hasbro, most of them Beyblade related.
- According to his design peon Evan Brooks, Paolino is a huge car guy who would love to do a line bringing back an Alternators-style alternate mode focused ethos some day.<ref name ="TripleEvan"/>
References
[edit]External links
[edit]Interviews
[edit]- 2010 - Calling all fans of 'Transformers', Interview at Shanghai Daily for Cybertron Con 2010
- 2020 - Transformers BotBots Redefine More than Meets the Eye, Interview on BotBots at Newsweek, with Ben Montano