Lego
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Lego (Template:IPAc-en, Template:Respell; Template:IPA;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> stylised as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. Lego consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks made of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) that accompany an array of gears, figurines called minifigures, and various other parts. Its pieces can be assembled and connected in many ways to construct objects, including vehicles, buildings, and working robots. Assembled Lego models can be taken apart, and their pieces can be reused to create new constructions.<ref name="Lego History-About Us">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Lego Group began manufacturing the interlocking toy bricks in 1949. Moulding is done in Denmark, Hungary, Mexico, and China. Brick decorations and packaging are done at plants in the former three countries and in the Czech Republic. Annual production of the bricks averages approximately 36 billion, or about 1140 elements per second. One of Europe's biggest companies, Lego is the largest toy manufacturer in the world by sales.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Template:As of, 600 billion Lego parts had been produced.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Lego maintains a large fan community based around building competitions and custom creations, and a range of films, games, and ten Legoland amusement parks have been developed under the brand.
History
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The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891–1958), a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref><ref name="LEGObook">Template:Harvnb</ref> In 1934, his company came to be called "Lego", derived from the Danish phrase Template:Lang Template:IPA,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which means "play well".<ref name="lego-group-history">Template:Cite web</ref> In 1947, Lego expanded to begin producing plastic toys.<ref name="Wiencek45-46">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> In 1949 the business began producing, among other new products, an early version of the now familiar interlocking bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks". These bricks were based on the Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, invented by Hilary Page in 1939 and patented in the United Kingdom in 1940<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> before being displayed at the 1947 Earl's Court Toy Fair.<ref>Page's twin daughters play with a set of Kiddicraft K 263 Building Blocks Template:Cite web</ref> Lego had received a sample of the Kiddicraft bricks from the supplier of an injection-molding machine that it purchased.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The bricks, originally manufactured from cellulose acetate,<ref name="Pickering15">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> were a development of the traditional stackable wooden blocks of the time.<ref name="Wiencek45-46" />
The Lego Group's motto, "only the best is good enough"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (Template:Langx, literally "the best isn't excessively good") was created in 1936.<ref name="LEGObook" /> Christiansen created the motto, still used today, to encourage his employees never to skimp on quality, a value he believed in strongly.<ref name="LEGObook" /> By 1951, plastic toys accounted for half of the company's output, even though the Danish trade magazine Legetøjs-Tidende ("Toy Times"), visiting the Lego factory in Billund in the early 1950s, wrote that plastic would never be able to replace traditional wooden toys.<ref name="Wiencek46-52">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Although a common sentiment, Lego toys seem to have become a significant exception to the dislike of plastic in children's toys, due in part to the high standards set by Ole Kirk.<ref>Lauwaert, M. (2008). "Playing outside the box – on LEGO toys and the changing world of construction play". History & Technology, 24(3), 221–237.</ref>
By 1954, Christiansen's son, Godtfred, had become the junior managing director of the Lego Group.<ref name="Wiencek46-52" /> It was his conversation with an overseas buyer that led to the idea of a toy system. Godtfred saw the immense potential in Lego bricks to become a system for creative play, but the bricks still had some problems from a technical standpoint: Their locking ability was still limited, and they were not yet versatile.<ref name="Lego History-About Us" /> In 1958, the modern brick design was developed; ABS subsequently replaced cellulose acetate as the manufacturing material five years later.<ref name="Pickering15" /><ref name="Wiencek68-72">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> A patent application for the modern Lego brick design was filed in Denmark on 28 January 1958 and in various other countries in the subsequent few years.<ref name="Time50Years">Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Lego Group's Duplo product line was introduced in 1969 and is a range of blocks whose lengths measure twice the width, height, and depth of standard Lego blocks and are aimed towards younger children.<ref name="Wiencek46-52" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1978, Lego produced the first minifigures, which have since become a staple in most sets.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 1997, more than five million Lego pieces were swept into the sea when a wave hit a cargo ship off the coast of Cornwall, England. Pieces have washed up over the ensuing decades, attracting attention from news outlets and social media.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In May 2011, Space Shuttle Endeavour mission STS-134 brought 13 Lego kits to the International Space Station, where astronauts built models to see how they would react in microgravity, as a part of the Lego Bricks in Space program.<ref name="Banks">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Eaton">Template:Cite magazine</ref> In May 2013, the largest model ever created, made of over 5 million bricks, was displayed in New York City; a one-to-one scale model of a Star Wars X-wing fighter.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Other record breakers include a Template:Convert tower<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and a Template:Convert railway.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In February 2015, marketing consulting company Brand Finance ranked Lego as the "world's most powerful brand", overtaking Ferrari.<ref name="Dill">Template:Citation</ref><ref name="Brand Finance">Template:Cite web</ref>
While Lego has generally been considered a children's toy, there have also been adult fans of the toys. In 2020, Lego introduced sets aged at 18+, generally some of their more expensive and difficult-to-assemble sets based on real world or fictional objects, such as the Concorde or Rivendell. The timing of these sets favorably aligned with the COVID-19 pandemic, with many adults purchasing these sets to work on during various lockdown periods. Popularity within adults was further pushed by the release of The Lego Movie and the reality series Lego Masters. By 2024, nearly 15% of the sets released in the U.S. were aimed at adult builders.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In May 2025 Lego announced that it was planning to move its London headquarters from Farringdon to 76 South Bank, in 2027.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Design
[edit]Lego pieces of all varieties constitute a universal system. Despite variations in the design and the purposes of individual pieces over the years, each remains compatible in some way with existing pieces. Lego bricks from 1958 still interlock with those made presently, and Lego sets for young children are compatible with those made for teenagers. Six bricks of 2 × 4 studs<ref>Template:Cite web, The Brick Blogger.</ref> can be combined in 915,103,765 ways.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Each piece must be manufactured to an exacting degree of precision. When two pieces are engaged, they must fit firmly, yet be easily disassembled. The machines that manufacture Lego bricks have tolerances as small as 10 micrometres.<ref name="Companyprofile">Template:Cite web</ref>
Primary concept and development work for the toy takes place at the Billund headquarters, where the company employs approximately 120 designers. The company also has smaller design offices in the UK, Spain, Germany, and Japan which are tasked with developing products aimed specifically at their respective national markets. The average development period for a new product is around twelve months, split into three stages. The first is to identify market trends and developments, including contact by the designers directly with the market; some are stationed in toy shops close to holidays, while others interview children. The second stage is the design and development of the product based on the results of the first stage. Template:As of the design teams use 3D modelling software to generate CAD drawings from initial design sketches. The designs are then prototyped using an in-house stereolithography machine. These prototypes are presented to the entire project team for comment and testing by parents and children during the "validation" process. Designs may then be altered in accordance with the results from the focus groups. Virtual models of completed Lego products are built concurrently with the writing of the user instructions. Completed CAD models are also used in the wider organisation for marketing and packaging.<ref name="3d">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Lego Digital Designer was an official piece of Lego software for Mac OS X and Windows which allowed users to create their own digital Lego designs.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The program once allowed customers to order custom designs<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> with a service to ship physical models from Digital Designer to consumers; the service ended in 2012.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Lego's website now recommends BrickLink Studio.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Manufacturing
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Since 1963, Lego pieces have been manufactured from ABS plastic.<ref name="Pickering15" /><ref name="Companyprofile" /> Template:As of, Lego engineers use the NX CAD/CAM/CAE PLM software suite to model the elements. The software allows the parts to be optimised by way of mould flow and stress analysis. Prototype moulds are sometimes built before the design is committed to mass production. The ABS plastic is heated to Template:Convert until it reaches a dough-like consistency. It is then injected into the moulds using forces of between 25 and 150 tonnes and takes approximately 15 seconds to cool. The moulds are permitted a tolerance of up to twenty micrometres to ensure the bricks remain connected.<ref name="3d" /> Human inspectors check the output of the moulds to eliminate significant variations in colour or thickness. According to the Lego Group, about eighteen bricks out of every million fail to meet the standard required.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Lego factories recycle all but about 1 percent of their plastic waste from the manufacturing process. If the plastic cannot be re-used in Lego bricks, it is processed and sold on to industries that can make use of it.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="howstuffworks">Template:Cite web</ref> Lego, in 2018, set a self-imposed 2030 deadline to find a more eco-friendly alternative to the ABS plastic.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Manufacturing of Lego bricks occurs at several locations around the world. Moulding is done in Billund, Denmark; Nyíregyháza, Hungary; Monterrey, Mexico; and most recently in Jiaxing, China. Brick decorations and packaging are done at plants in the former three countries and in Kladno in the Czech Republic. The Lego Group estimates that in five decades it has produced 400 billion Lego blocks.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Annual production of the bricks averages approximately 36 billion, or about 1140 elements per second. According to an article in BusinessWeek in 2006, Lego could also be considered the world's number-one tyre manufacturer; the factory produces about 306 million small rubber tyres a year.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The claim was reiterated in 2012.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In April 2023, Lego broke ground on its first manufacturing facility in the United States. The new carbon-neutral factory will be located near Richmond, Virginia. It will amount to over $1 billion in investment once completed in 2025. The 340 acre site will have rooftop and ground solar panels and an on-site 35-40 MW solar plant, generating the equivalent of the energy of powering 10,000 American homes.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In April 2025, Lego opened its sixth factory worldwide, located in Vietnam, with Lego saying the location is its most environmentally sustainable factory to date.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In December 2012, the BBC's More or Less radio program asked the Open University's engineering department to determine "how many Lego bricks, stacked one on top of the other, it would take for the weight to destroy the bottom brick?"<ref name="bbclego">Template:Cite news</ref> Using a hydraulic testing machine, members of the department determined the average maximum force a 2×2 Lego brick can stand is 4,240 newtons. Since an average 2×2 Lego brick has a mass of Template:Convert, according to their calculations it would take a stack of 375,000 bricks to cause the bottom brick to collapse, which represents a stack Template:Convert in height.<ref name="bbclego" />
Private tests have shown several thousand assembly-disassembly cycles before the bricks begin to wear out,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> although Lego tests show fewer cycles.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 2018, Lego announced that it will be using bio-derived polyethylene to make its botanical elements (parts such as leaves, bushes and trees).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The New York Times reported the company's footprint that year was "about a million tons of carbon dioxide each year" and that it was investing about 1 billion kroner and hiring 100 people to work on changes. The paper reported that Lego's researchers "have already experimented with around 200 alternatives."<ref name=NYT>Reed, Stanley, "Leg Hunts New Bricks for a Sustainable Future," New York Times, 1 September 2018, B1</ref> In 2020, Lego announced that it would cease packaging its products in single-use plastic bags and would instead be using recyclable paper bags.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2021, the company said it would aim to produce its bricks without using crude oil, by using recycled polyethylene terephthalate bottles, but in 2023 it reversed this decision, having found that this did not reduce its carbon dioxide emissions.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Set themes
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Since the 1950s, the Lego Group has released thousands of sets with a variety of themes, including space, pirates, trains, (European) castle, dinosaurs, undersea exploration, and wild west, as well as wholly original themes like Bionicle and Hero Factory. Some of the classic themes that continue to the present day include Lego City (a line of sets depicting city life introduced in 1973) and Lego Technic (a line aimed at emulating complex machinery, introduced in 1977).Template:Sfn
Over the years, the company has licensed themes from numerous cartoon and film franchises and some from video games. These include Batman, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel, Minecraft and Wicked. Although some of these themes, such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones, had highly successful sales, the Lego Group expressed in 2015 a desire to rely more upon their own characters and classic themes and less upon such licensed themes.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Some sets include references to other themes, such as a Bionicle mask in one of the Harry Potter sets.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Discontinued sets may become collectable and command value on the secondary market.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
For the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Lego released a special Team GB Minifigures series exclusively in the United Kingdom to mark the opening of the games. For the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Lego released a kit with the Olympic and Paralympic mascots Vinicius and Tom.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
One of the largest commercially produced Lego sets was a minifigure-scaled edition of the Star Wars Millennium Falcon. Designed by Jens Kronvold Fredericksen, the Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon (setTemplate:Nbsp10179) was released in 2007 and contained 5,195 pieces. It was later surpassed by a 5,922-piece Taj Mahal (setTemplate:Nbsp10189). A redesigned Millennium Falcon (setTemplate:Nbsp75192) retook the top spot in 2017 with 7,541 pieces.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Since then, the Millennium Falcon has been superseded by the Lego Art World Map (setTemplate:Nbsp31203) at 11,695 pieces, the Lego Titanic (setTemplate:Nbsp10294) at 9,090 pieces, and the Lego Architect Colosseum (setTemplate:Nbsp10276) at 9,036 pieces.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 2022, Lego introduced its Eiffel Tower (setTemplate:Nbsp10307), which consists of 10,001 parts and reaches a height of Template:Cvt, making it the tallest set and tower, but second in number of parts after the World Map.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Robotics themes
[edit]Template:Main The company also initiated a robotics line of toys called Mindstorms in 1999, and continued to expand and update this range until it was eventually discontinued in 2022.<ref name="Mindstorms discontinued">Template:Cite web</ref> The roots of the product originated with a programmable brick developed at the MIT Media Lab, and the name was taken from a paper by Seymour Papert, a computer scientist and educator who developed the educational theory of constructionism, and whose research was at times funded by the Lego Group.<ref name="Mindstorms History">Template:Cite web</ref>
The programmable Lego brick which was at the heart of these robotics sets underwent several updates and redesigns, with the last being called the 'EV3' brick, being sold under the name of Lego Mindstorms EV3. The set included various sensors such as touch, light, sound and ultrasonic waves, with several others being sold separately, including an RFID reader.<ref name="About EV3">Template:Cite web</ref>
The programmable brick could be programmed using official software available for Windows and Mac computers. In the earliest iteration of the product, the program would be uploaded to the programmable brick via an infrared transmitter, while in later versions this was achieved via Bluetooth or a USB cable. Unofficial programming languages that can be used with Lego Mindstorms programmable bricks have also been developed.<ref name="Not Quite C">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Not eXactly C">Template:Cite web</ref>
There have been several robotics competitions which used the Lego robotics sets. The earliest was Botball, a national U.S. middle- and high-school competition stemming from the MIT 6.270 Lego robotics tournament. Other Lego robotics competitions include FIRST LEGO League Discover for children ages 4–6, FIRST LEGO League Explore for students ages 6–9 and FIRST Lego League Challenge for students ages 9–16 (age 9–14 in the United States, Canada, and Mexico). These programs have offered real-world engineering challenges to participants using LEGO-based robots to complete tasks. In its 2019–2020 season, there were 38,609 FIRST LEGO League Challenge teams and 21,703 FIRST LEGO League Explore teams around the world. The international RoboCup Junior football competition involved extensive use of Lego Mindstorms equipment which was often pushed to its extreme limits.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The capabilities of the Mindstorms range have also been harnessed for use in the Iko Creative Prosthetic System, a prosthetic limbs system designed for children. Designs for these Lego prosthetics allow everything from mechanical diggers to laser-firing spaceships to be screwed on to the end of a child's limb. Iko was the work of the Chicago-based Colombian designer Carlos Arturo Torres, and is a modular system that allows children to customise their own prosthetics with the ease of clicking together plastic bricks. Designed with Lego's Future Lab, the Danish toy company's experimental research department, and Cirec, a Colombian foundation for physical rehabilitation, the modular prosthetic incorporated myoelectric sensors that register the activity of the muscle in the stump and send a signal to control movement in the attachment. A processing unit in the body of the prosthetic contained an engine compatible with Lego Mindstorms, which allowed the wearer to build an extensive range of customised, programmable limbs.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In popular culture
[edit]Lego's popularity is demonstrated by its wide representation and usage in many cultural works, including books, films, and art. It has even been used in the classroom as a teaching tool.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the US, Lego Education North America is a joint venture between Pitsco, Inc. and the educational division of the Lego Group.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 1998, Lego bricks were one of the original inductees into the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester, New York.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
"Lego" is commonly used as a mass noun ("some Lego") or, in American English, as a countable noun with plural "Legos", to refer to the bricks themselves,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> but as is common for trademarks, Lego group insists on the name being used as an adjective when referring to a product (as in "LEGO bricks").<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Lego bricks have a reputation for causing pain when stepped on, often being humorously exaggerated as more extreme than that caused by even the worst injuries.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In this way, they are viewed as a sort of modern-day caltrop.
Clones
[edit]The last significant patent for Lego bricks expired in 1978.<ref name="Time50Years" /><ref name="NYTBlockByBlock">Template:Cite news</ref> Since then, competitors have produced blocks of similar dimensions and design that can be connected with Lego bricks.<ref name="NYTBlockByBlock" /> In 2002, Lego sued the CoCo Toy Company in Beijing for copyright infringement over its "Coko bricks" product. CoCo was ordered to cease manufacture of the products, publish a formal apology and pay damages.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Lego sued the English company Best-Lock Construction Toys in German courts in 2004<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and 2009;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the Federal Patent Court of Germany denied Lego trademark protection for the shape of its bricks for the latter case.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2005, the Lego Company sued Canadian company Ritvik Holdings Inc., which makes Mega Bloks, for trademark violation. However, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld Ritvik Holdings Inc.'s rights to sell its product.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2010, the European Court of Justice ruled that the eight-peg design of the original Lego brick "merely performs a technical function [and] cannot be registered as a trademark."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2020 and 2021, Lego sent cease and desist letters to small toy retailers and popular YouTubers in Germany. In 2021, a shipment of bricks delivered by clone producer Qman was blocked from passing through German customs due to concerns over the potential infringement of Lego's intellectual property. The recipient toy retailer initiated an appeal for donations to import containers of Lego clones from China to Germany and donate them to children's homes, which received more than Template:Currency within a couple of weeks.<ref>Lego bringt die treuesten Fans gegen sich auf Template:Webarchive Template:Lang, 21 February 2020</ref><ref>Rumoren in der Lego-Welt Template:Webarchive, orf.at, 6 March 2021.</ref><ref>EXTRABLATT!! LEGO hat mächtig Angst und schlägt wild um sich! Qman soll vernichtet werden Template:Webarchive, Thomas Panke, 5 March 2021.</ref>
Related services
[edit]Official website
[edit]First launched in 1996, the Lego website has developed over the years, and provides many extra services beyond an online store and a product catalogue. There are also moderated message boards that were founded in 2001.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The site also includes instruction booklets for all Lego sets dating back to 2002.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Lego website features a social media app named Lego Life,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which is designed for children under 13 years of age. The app is available as a free download and only features Lego-related content. It was designed to be a social network for children to be inspired, create and share their Lego builds, photos and videos with a like-minded community, whilst also providing Lego content in the form of product advertising, images, videos, campaigns and competitions. The app incorporates a variety of child safety features to provide a safe digital environment for children, including the protection of personal information and the heavy moderation of all uploaded user-generated content and communication.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
My Lego Network was a social networking site that involved items, blueprints, ranks, badges which were earned for completing certain tasks, trading and trophies called masterpieces which allowed users to progress to go to the next rank. The website had a built-in inbox which allowed users to send pre-written messages to one another. The Lego Network included automated non-player characters within called "Networkers", who were able to do things which normal users could not do, sending custom messages, and selling masterpieces and blueprints. The site also had modules which were set up on the user's page that gave the user items, or that displayed picture compositions. My Lego network closed in 2015.
Before My Lego Network, there were Lego Club Pages, which essentially held the same purpose, although the design lacked complex interaction.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Theme parks
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Merlin Entertainments operates ten Legoland amusement parks, the original in Billund, Denmark, the second in Windsor, England, the third in Günzburg, Germany, the fourth in Carlsbad, California, the fifth in Winter Haven, Florida, the sixth in Iskandar Puteri, Malaysia,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the seventh in Dubai, United Arab Emirates,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the eighth in Nagoya, Japan,<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> the ninth in Goshen, New York,<ref name=":0" /> and a tenth in 2022 in Shanghai, China.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On 13 July 2005, the control of 70% of the Legoland parks was sold for $460 million to the Blackstone Group of New York while the remaining 30% is still held by Lego Group.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> There are also eight Legoland Discovery Centres, two in Germany, four in the United States, one in Japan and one in the United Kingdom. Two Legoland Discovery Centres opened in 2013: one at the Westchester Ridge Hill shopping complex in Yonkers, New York, and one at the Vaughan Mills in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. Another opened at American Dream Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in 2021.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Retail stores
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The first Lego store to open anywhere in the world was in Sydney, Australia, in 1984. Located in the Birkenhead Point Outlet Centre it was not only the first dedicated Lego retail outlet, but it also had displays including many iconic Australian items such as the Holden FJ, Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the Sydney Opera House as well as buildings from Amsterdam, dinosaurs and an English Village. Known as The LEGO Centre, Birkenhead Point, the store closed in the early 1990s.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:As of, Lego operates 1031 retail shops, called Lego Stores, globally.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The world's largest Lego store is located in Leicester Square, London.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The U.S. stores include the Downtown Disney shopping complexes at Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorts as well as in Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. The opening of each new store is celebrated with a weekend-long event in which a Master Model Builder creates, with the help of volunteers—a larger-than-life Lego statue, which is then displayed at the new store for several weeks.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Business consultancy
[edit]Since around 2000, the Lego Group has been promoting "Lego Serious Play", a form of business consultancy fostering creative thinking, in which team members build metaphors of their organizational identities and experiences using Lego bricks. Participants work through imaginary scenarios using visual three-dimensional Lego constructions, imaginatively exploring possibilities in a serious form of play.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Related products
[edit]Video games
[edit]Lego branched out into the video game market in 1997 by founding Lego Media International Limited, and Lego Island was released that year by Mindscape. After this Lego released titles such as Lego Creator and Lego Racers.
After Lego closed down their publishing subsidiary, they moved on to a partnership with Traveller's Tales, and went on to make games like Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Batman, and many more including the very well-received Lego Marvel Super Heroes game, featuring New York City as the overworld and including Marvel characters from the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and more.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2014, Lego created a game based on The Lego Movie, due to its popularity.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Board games
[edit]Lego Games launched in 2009, was a series of Lego-themed board games designed by Cephas Howard and Reiner Knizia<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> in which the players usually build the playing board out of Lego bricks and then play with Lego-style players. Examples of the games include "Minotaurus", in which players roll dice to move characters within a brick-build labyrinth, "Creationary", in which players must build something which appears on a card, or "Ramses Pyramid", in which players collect gems and climb up a customizable pyramid. Like many board games, the games use dice. In Lego Games, the dice are Lego, with Lego squares with symbols on Lego studs on the dice, surrounded by rubber. The games vary from simple to complex; some are similar to "traditional" board games, while others are completely different.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Films and television
[edit]The first official Lego film was the straight-to-DVD release of Bionicle: Mask of Light in 2003 developed by Creative Capers Entertainment and distributed by Miramax Home Entertainment. Several other straight-to-DVD computer-animated Bionicle sequels and Hero Factory movies were produced in the following years. Lego: The Adventures of Clutch Powers was released on DVD in February 2010, a computer-animated film made by Tinseltown Toons.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A computer-generated animated series titled Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu began in January 2011 for the Lego Ninjago brand.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Another television series titled Legends of Chima began in 2013 for the Legends of Chima brand.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In December 2015, a television series titled Nexo Knights made its debut for the Lego Nexo Knights brand.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> An animated series titled Lego Elves was released in 2015 and another titled Lego Elves: Secrets of Elvendale was released in 2017 for the Lego Elves brand.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2016, Lego Bionicle: The Journey To One was released for the Bionicle franchise and Lego Friends: The Power of Friendship for the Lego Friends brand.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In June 2019, an animated series titled Lego City Adventures was released for the Lego City brand.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2021, an animated series titled Lego Monkie Kid was released to support the Lego brand of the same name.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Lego Movie, a feature film based on Lego toys, was released by Warner Bros. in February 2014.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It featured Chris Pratt in the lead role, with substantial supporting characters voiced by Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Alison Brie, Will Ferrell and Nick Offerman.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A contest was held for contestants to submit designs for vehicles to be used in the film.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After the release of The Lego Movie, independent Canadian toy retailers reported issues with shortages of Lego products and cited cancellations of Lego pre-orders without warning<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> as a motive to stock compatible, rival products.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
A spin-off of The Lego Movie, entitled The Lego Batman Movie, directed by Chris McKay was released in the US in February 2017.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A sequel to The Lego Batman Movie was planned and later cancelled.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In June 2013, it was reported that Warner Bros. was developing a feature film adaptation of Lego Ninjago. Brothers Dan Hageman and Kevin Hageman were attached to write the adaptation, while Dan Lin and Roy Lee, along with Phil Lord and Chris Miller, were announced as producers.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The film, The Lego Ninjago Movie, was released in September 2017.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In February 2019, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part was released, which was a direct sequel to the original film and starred Chris Pratt in the lead role.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
On 27 January, 2024, it was announced that a new film, titled Piece by Piece, would be released on 11 October, 2024. It is a biographical film focusing on the life of singer Pharrell Williams.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Books and magazines
[edit]Lego has an ongoing deal with British multinational publisher Dorling Kindersley (DK), who have produced a series of illustrated hardback books looking at different aspects of the construction toy. The first was The Ultimate Lego Book, published in 1999. In 2009, the same publisher produced The LEGO Book, which was sold within a slipcase along with Standing Small: A celebration of 30 years of the LEGO minifigure, a smaller book focused on the minifigure. In 2012, a revised edition was published. Also in 2009, DK also published books on Lego Star Wars and a range of Lego-based sticker books.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Although no longer being published in the United States by Scholastic, books covering events in the Bionicle storyline are written by Greg Farshtey. They are still being published in Europe by AMEET. Bionicle comics, also written by Farshtey, are compiled into graphic novels and were released by Papercutz. This series ended in 2009, after nine years.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
There is also the Lego Club and Brickmaster magazine, the latter discontinued in 2011.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Lego Life Magazine was released in 2017 and serves as a replacement for the Lego Club Magazine.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Clothing
[edit]Kabooki, a Danish company founded in 1993, produces children's clothes branded as "Lego Wear" under licence from the Lego Group.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2020, Lego announced collaborations with Adidas and Levi's.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2021, Lego announced collaborations with Justhype and Adidas to produce apparel inspired by the Lego Ninjago theme.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In May 2021, Lego announced collaborations with Adidas to produce products inspired by the Lego Vidiyo theme.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
References
[edit]Bibliography
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External links
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