LEGO!

You may remember that in a previous blog I mentioned I own a lego beetle, in this post I'm going to talk a bit more about LEGO as a brand and a few of my favourite sets. I also want to discuss the great design of lego as an educational toy for children and how it has shaped kids into the problem solvers of today.

So we all know lego, but I'll give you a brief history anyway. Founded in 1932 in Denmark the companies name Lego is actually an abbreviation of the danish words "leg godt" meaning "play well", a phrase the brand still identifies with. The company actually started with wooden toys until 1949n when the brand created its first plastic brick, and the rest was history.

I've played with and loved lego since I was tiny, as kid who loved Star Wars I was always pestering my parents for another lego set. Playing the lego Star Wars game on my PS3 with my friends and family were the best times. I remember enjoying building sets with the instructions more than free styling on my own back then. And for the complicated sets I would sometimes be lucky enough to get at Christmas time I needed to enlist my dad for some help to get the job done. But once it was done I wasn't the type to play with the much really, for the most part they would go on a shelf to be admired as I was scared it might get broken and I wouldn't be able to put it back together. Sometimes I'd enjoy playing with random lego and I had a box of odd bits which I played with when I had friends over but my favourite thing was taking an afternoon myself or with my dad and building a whole set.I sort of fell out of lego for a while as you do in the ages when you wish you were older. I gave most of my lego away to men younger cousin who got a lot of joy out of it which was great to see.

A still from the original lego Star Wars game

As I started at University I got back into again a bit. Not only did I have an appreciation for it again in my studies in design but Lego were brining out great things like the beetle which I got as a gift that year. One great thing I feel about lego is the sets they have released seem to have grown with me. This is obviously great deacon making from their brand strategy team in realising the kids that grew up in the lego golden era will still have an interest in it as adults but not for the play sets but for more mature sets. ( I use the word mature here loosely)

Lego currently have huge ranges of more complicated builds inspired by design classic, great architecture, world monuments and even plants and flower arrangements. My most recent set that I built was of a lego orchid!

These sets are designed to be shown as an art piece in an adults home, which is what I have done with mine. I'd be proud to have the beetle or the orchid on display in my home because I think they are really cool! And the trends got legs, all across social media lifestyle and home design pages are posting videos of homes with lego Porsches in them and even lego coffee tables have been a huge trend recently. While I haven't went that far u yet, mostly because they seem impractical I am loving the resurgence. I think my generation of kids that grew up with the grand are feeling nostalgia about playing with it as a child and with children spending huge amounts of time on screens in this modern age, we are. glad we played with these physical toys.

Lego coffee table from TikTok

What I credit Legos continued greatest to though is the products ability to develop key skills in young children. Teaching kids how to problem solve, follow instructions, read and understand diagrams, follow a structure but also to have fun an get creative if you are inclined. Build a house, create your own world. All of these skills that you learn in children become the foundations that make good architects, designers, engineers that are imaginative and resilient. There is no doubt that the system lego has created is great, how many different possibilities that blocks with studs create is amazing. But what is the greatest about the brand is ethos and positivity it promotes.

I won't stop enjoying lego any time soon, in fact there's a new lego version of the Land Rover defender which I have just started saving up my pocket money for.