You may recall Marinus Jasperse, Senior Designer on the LEGO® Element Design Team, from his
recent article when he pulled apart a 1980s DUPLO phone! Following this, Tim Johnson caught up over a video call with Marinus in his 'home office', to gain a deeper insight into how the element designers at The LEGO Group are structured and operate. This transcript has been edited for clarity, readability and narrative flow.
New Elementary: Hello, Marinus, thanks for your time this morning!
Marinus: Let me just start by saying, that is always very thorough research you guys do on elements. In some cases you even manage to surprise us like, “wow – there is a connection there!” So very, very thorough.
That's what we like to hear, we're hoping we're surprising people, especially TLG employees! So when did you begin at the LEGO Group and what has your journey there been?
I started in October 2015, in the Platform team. Back then they were developing the roller coaster track so I came half-way into that project and what an awesome project it was to start with, creating such a unique subsystem! I’m part of the Element Design Team too now; about a year ago I made the decision to move over and go a little more into Downstream.