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Dedhed Designs’ Founder, Michael Lee, has been drawing monsters and all things macabre since he learned how to hold a pencil. When asked to draw what his cat does in kindergarten, he earned his first phone call home by recreating the proud hunter with its mangled, bloody trophy of a mouse inside its mouth. The writing was on the wall from an early age.
As he grew, so too did his love for horror movies, sinister music, and the occult. As a young teenager, he discovered a new passion: the diabolo! He began frequenting a local toy and hobby shop, The Flying Clipper – best known for inventing the DirtBag hacky sack. After developing a knack for the hacky sack, Michael Lee’s interest in flow toys spread like wildfire. Each time he visited The Flying Clipper, he picked up a new toy. By age 15, he was getting hired to juggle, yoyo, and make balloon animals at community carnivals.
Though his flow toy mentors were deep into all styles of yoyos, Michael Lee didn’t discover his interest until Duncan released the freehand. The parallels between 5a aerial tricks and Diabolo tricks spoke to him immediately. Not long after getting his hands on Duncan’s character weights, he was compelled to begin creating his own. Little did he know, while hand-painting wooden beads from the craft store, he was laying the foundation for his future business.
In high school, he first met his best friend and future business partner, Skye. They bonded immediately over shared interests in movies, music, and – again – all things macabre. Even as a teenager, Skye was passionate about writing, photography, and design. Having won her first photo contest in the third grade, the darkroom at their high school quickly became her favorite place on campus. She went on to become editor-in-chief of her high school newspaper, bulletin editor for her service club, and managing editor of her college newspaper.
Their paths diverged shortly after. Michael Lee moved out of the Pacific Northwest while Skye stuck around to finish her bachelor’s degree at the University of Oregon. Separately, they continued making art and eventually started their own businesses.
Skye had been pursuing photography full-time, earning dozens of publications in fashion magazines. Through Eugene’s flourishing art community, she found herself surrounded by flow artists and performers. After falling in love with hooping, she went on to learn acro yoga and even dabbled with lyra. But the further she delved into circus arts, the more she thought about her long, lost best friend.
In 2020, she decided to track him down. Even after more than a decade apart, their paths were still parallel. They were both in marketing careers and playing with toys in their spare time. They were both professional artists. And they were both still head over heels for each other. In 2021, Michael Lee returned to Oregon. Now living together and running Dedhed Designs as a couple, the two are confident that their reunion was not an act of coincidence but one of fate.
Michael Lee launched Dedhed Designs back in 2018 with one goal in mind: to create horror-inspired designer toys. He wanted more than just figures on display; he wanted functional, durable, and detailed toys – toys that could survive play battles and poltergeists. True to his nature, Michael Lee dove into the world of modern toy-making headfirst. He learned about computer modeling, the properties of myriad materials, and the ways in which they interacted. He studied inks, dyes, and paints, various resins and silicone. With silicone, he created everything from figurines to stash jar covers. One of the earliest Dedhed toys was a flexible, bendable silicone eye that could be wrapped around virtually any object.
But in a fortuitous turn of events, just as Dedhed Designs was getting off the ground, 5a inventor Steve Brown’s patent expired. When he announced that he would not renew it, Michael Lee knew it was time to start producing counterweights. The first dedweights were crafted with a combination of polymer clay and epoxy resin. As media, the clay served to produce eye-catching details while the resin provided protection against the abuse of 5a play. Finally, each dedweight was painstakingly coated and polished to guarantee clarity and shine.
In October 2020, Dedhed Designs partnered with Few and Far Between Yoyos on the Elysium release, creating counterweight replicas of Mars, Neptune, and Earth. In the spirit of authenticity and attention to detail, Michael Lee thoroughly researched each planet’s atmosphere and sculpted them accordingly. This very first production served as an important lesson and a major turning point for the company.
Though Michael Lee loved the process of constructing with clay and casting with resin, it was far from efficient. From start to finish, it took weeks – sometimes even months – to produce just a handful of commercially viable products. It was time for a change, and Michael Lee’s return to Oregon was the perfect time to make that change. With a new partner in business and in life, he was ready to take Dedhed Designs to the next level.
Coming full circle, after investing in 3D resin printers, Michael Lee returned to computer modeling. After extensive testing, retesting, researching, and developing, the Ghoul was released to the public in April 2022. Later that year, in collaboration with the legendary Jake Bullock, Dedhed Designs produced a set of D20 counterweights to complement the Nickel Dunk and a set of highly detailed basketballs to complement the Titanium Dunk. Since then, the Dedweight line has expanded to include the Visitor, the Yeti, Pumpkinhed, and more.
Moving forward, Dedhed Designs will continue to push the envelope of counterweight innovation, continuously working to improve quality and creativity – just as they did when they chose to team up with Northwest Precision Coats to provide state-of-the-art cerakote protection to all Dedweights. But even as products evolve and expand, the core mission will remain: to invoke the unrivaled joy of collecting toys. Because, at the end of the day, Dedhed Designs is just a couple of overgrown ’90s kids raised on Stephen King, pogs, and Pokémon cards.