How Lego builds a new Lego set

August 9, 2024 4:12 AM

Each project moving through the Lego Ideas program starts the same way: a Lego designer tries to replicate the original fan creation in the real world to see what works and what doesn’t.
posted by cupcakeninja (14 comments total)

A set based on Blackpink’s music video for “Lovesick Girls” hit 5,000 votes in August
posted by HearHere at 4:25 AM on August 9 [1 favorite]

Years ago my daughter got very enthusiastic about a contest Lego had for it's Friends line, in which one lucky kid's design would be launched as a set, and the winner would have the opportunity to spend a week in Billund participating in the process of making the set ready for production. She was a finalist, and prepared for an interview and everything, I was very proud. Sadly, her (novel) food truck design did not win, although the company has subsequently offered seemingly endless variations on the food truck theme since, to her endless frustration.
posted by St. Oops at 5:09 AM on August 9 [6 favorites]

I’m usually a big fan of the verge’s alternate page layouts, but the galleries in this are doing something terrible to my scrolling. I can’t scroll past the gallery sections without them scrolling across… which takes me deep into the right side of the screen, with no way back. Or I can use my browsers read function which removes all the pictures.

Anyway, it certainly sounds great.
posted by The River Ivel at 5:27 AM on August 9 [3 favorites]

Hmm. It works for me in Safari and FF on iOS, Safari and FF on Mac, and Chrome, FF, and Edge on Windows. Might be worth trying a different combo, as I thought the alternate layout added a little of the ol' je ne sais quoi.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:55 AM on August 9

I am not a huge LEGO fan, but I am definitely enough of a LEGO fan to have loved reading that. Also, my niece recently got a polaroid camera, I wonder if she'd like a fake polaroid camera to go with it.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:38 AM on August 9

a contest Lego had for it's Friends line I clicked through because I had a completely different picture in my head when I read this. (Monica's apartment! Joey's apartment! Central Perk!)
posted by Daily Alice at 6:38 AM on August 9 [2 favorites]

Same. We actually have the Central Perk set. It's great.
posted by rlk at 7:08 AM on August 9 [1 favorite]

"Everything just clicked" - heh.
posted by doctornemo at 7:58 AM on August 9 [1 favorite]

And yet:

the catch here is that ABS is made from crude oil - well, strictly speaking from both oil and gas.
Every kilogram of Lego blocks in your cupboard or on the toy store shelves began its life as two kilograms of crude oil.

I *am* a Lego fan, lifelong, and this strikes me hard. We need to re-source the bricks asap.
posted by doctornemo at 8:04 AM on August 9

I do wonder how likely such change is on a broad scale for a commodity bringing in $9.65 billion per year, but they are (linked in the Twitter thread) working on it. There are complications, though, so TBD. Thus far, it seems like the failure to find workable alternatives means that Legos are and will continue to be what they are.
posted by cupcakeninja at 8:37 AM on August 9

I wouldn't make LEGO, a thing that is re-usable and often re-used, a main priority for finding fossil fuel alternatives. A bit of hand-wavy math suggests that a typical North American would probably use about the same amount of gas to drive to the mall and buy the set as is in the set.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:40 AM on August 9 [6 favorites]

So cool
posted by gottabefunky at 9:07 AM on August 9

cupcakeninja, sounds like jet travel.
posted by doctornemo at 1:28 PM on August 9

jacquilynne, Legos are a fine thing, as I said. But I want them re-sourced for the same reason I want civilization transformed, and not to put them at the front of the line.
I do think the enormous creativity Lego elicits could help!
posted by doctornemo at 1:29 PM on August 9