LEGO® Braille bricks

2023 Update! LEGO® Braille bricks will be available 1 September and available to pre-order now!
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New Elementary are spending three days gathering news stories and interviews at the Recognised LEGO® Fan Media Days in Billund, Denmark (thanks in part to the help of our 40 magnificent patrons on Patreon). On Day 1, Stine Storm of The LEGO Foundation showed us a prototype of their new product: LEGO® Braille bricks.

The LEGO Foundation own 25% of The LEGO Group (TLG), and that means that when TLG are doing well, The LEGO Foundation have money for exciting projects like LEGO® Braille bricks, announced earlier this year. The sets will be given to blind and visually impaired children for free, with the first round of markets launching in late 2020. The LEGO Foundation will work with a blindness association in each country to administrate this. Therefore the sets will be owned by individuals rather than schools or organisations. The Foundation hope the sets will be passed from child to child as each progresses from the bricks to regular Braille.

A long time ago... LEGO® Star Wars™ began

Billund, 9th April 2019: Twenty years ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the LEGO® Star Wars™theme began and has remained one of the most popular franchises ever since. Today, the LEGO Group is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the much-loved theme which now includes around 700 different sets and over 1,000 minifigures.

They've provided us with some fascinating pictures to share with you, so we thought it would be fun to look back to a time when Star Wars was the theme introducing new LEGO elements and breaking the mould. All images are © The LEGO Group unless otherwise attributed.

Interesting LEGO Star Wars Element Facts

The 1999 Jar Jar Binks minifigure was the first ever to have a unique LEGO head sculpt. These are a couple of prototype versions of Jar Jar's moulded head that show the development process.

LEGO® Unikitty: Yi-Chien Cheng & Janko Grujic interview

From a parts perspective, LEGO® Unikitty was perhaps the most interesting new theme of 2018. During the Recognised LEGO Media Fan Days, New Elementary sat down with two of the designers, Yi-Chien Cheng from Taiwan and Janko Grujic from Serbia, to ask them a few questions about the theme – and the new parts it’s given us.

We know Unikitty from 2014's The LEGO Movie, and she will return in the sequel this February. But in the meantime she got her own show, Unikitty! How did that come about?

Janko: The idea of that show has been, probably, on the table since the movie, because she’s such an appealing character. Warner Brothers joined forces with Cartoon Network to come up with the new show, so the sets that you see are related to the show on Cartoon Network, and I’d suggest that you take a look at it, it’s a lot of fun!

LEGO® Architecture: Rok Zgalin Kobe interview

At the Recognised LEGO® Fan Media Days in Billund last summer, we sat down with LEGO Architecture designer Rok Zgalin Kobe to have a chat about the evolution of the Architecture line. The LEGO Architecture theme has so far has spawned 42 building sets and one big ‘do it yourself’ kit – and last week we reviewed another two upcoming sets, 21044 Paris and 21043 San Francisco, due for release on 1st January 2019. 

By now, the Architecture line has pretty much become a mainstay of the LEGO portfolio. Are you surprised by the success the theme has had?

Rok: I would be betting against myself if I said I was surprised! I’m happy that it has the success that I believe it deserves.

It’s very different from the other lines, apart from maybe to a certain extent LEGO Ideas, in that the sets aren’t really made to be played with, they are static objects to be put on shelves, more like exhibition pieces. How does that affect the design process?

Rok: Well, it certainly doesn’t make us exempt from any of the stringent quality standards that the LEGO Group has, so it’s still treated as a child’s toy, with all the safety and quality issues that come with that. You have to be able to do this with it (holds up a pre-built 21037 LEGO House set and shakes it), so it has to be stable, but at the same time, at any point in the building process, you must not be able to injure yourself in any way with it. You always have to imagine a small child falling on top of it, which could be quite bad.

New year... new elements

If you have been following @PrinceGalidor aka LEGO® designer Nick Vas on Twitter recently, you will have noticed a series of cryptic tweets that included images of some beautifully organised LEGO parts and some code-like strings of letters. We have been trying to decrypt his tweets and need your help!

Nick Vas' series of tweets all began in a rather innocuous fashion on 25th November. He tweeted a trippy image with three lines of text:

How curious, whatever could it mean?

LEGO® BrickHeadz: Marcos Bessa interview part 2

In the first part of this interview with LEGO® BrickHeadz design lead Marcos Bessa, Are J. Heiseldal asked him about the advantages and the complexities of working with multiple intellectual properties (IPs), and the inherent limitations of the BrickHeadz concept itself. Today he asks about the new and recoloured parts as well as the production process... and which character is Marcos' favourite!

At New Elementary, we love new parts so the two new types of glasses that we got in the Go Brick Me set are particularly interesting for us. What can you tell us about the development process of those?
Marcos: The brief for the BrickHeadz line actually came with a request to do something like this. The idea for the Go Brick Me set came very early, in early 2017, so the brand was just about to come out officially on the market. We were already planning what to do for 2018 and so the importance of customisation, allowing people to represent their features was of key importance for this. So we immediately started looking into what that would mean in terms of new elements –  how to make glasses, do we need something new? I started exploring and came up with a whole lot of variations of new elements that we could make, trying to come up with something that would work and fulfil the brief for this purpose, but become a versatile enough element that it could become interesting for other uses. And I think we ended up finding something that is pretty cool for what we do in the set, but also offers a lot of other opportunities, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what comes out of it.

LEGO® BrickHeadz: Marcos Bessa interview part 1

LEGO® BrickHeadz first popped onto the scene as four exclusive sets, each containing two figures, for the San Diego Comic-Con in July 2016 but 22 more sets were added in 2017. Now, more than 70 different figures have been released and by the end of the year the number will be rapidly approaching 100, featuring figures from more external intellectual properties (IPs) than in any other LEGO product line. Are J. Heiseldal sat down with BrickHeadz design lead Marcos Bessa in Denmark to talk about the apparent smash hit.

BrickHeadz differ from a lot of other current LEGO lines in that it’s actually a new, in-house, brick-built concept, and you still deal with a lot of external IPs. What’s it like to be covering new ground like that?
Marcos: On a personal level, for me, it’s been a great challenge, because it’s a very different approach from any other product line that I’ve worked on. It has the similarity of dealing with IPs, which I have been doing for a while, but it’s in a whole different medium, with a whole different set of restrictions and challenges, and also with a whole different purpose. And my role in this product line as a creative lead has also allowed me to be much more involved in the strategy behind the line, the IPs that we bring on board, the character selection, the price point discussion, and so on. So it’s no longer just on the field, working as a designer and creating a model, I’m also more involved in other levels of discussion on the product line, which has been greatly appreciated from my side, as a growing professional. On the product line, in terms of challenges, it has been great to deal with all these different IPs, very challenging at times, there have been days and weeks when things seem to all be going south and wrong and then suddenly things get picked back up and go back on track. So it’s a fun journey. It doesn’t get boring.

The LEGO® Minifigure at 40: Inside the factory

The LEGO® Group have sent us these amazing images to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the LEGO minifigure and we just had to share them with you.

How are LEGO® minifigures printed? And as the elements that make up their torsos and legs are moulded separately, how are they then assembled? These pictures come from the production line of the LEGO factory in Kladno, Czech Republic. Tap/click any image to enlarge. And scroll down for video!

LEGO minifigure heads being printed

Wheee! Heads will roll... and then they'll get printed.

The LEGO® Minifigure at 40: Moulds

The LEGO® Group have sent us these amazing images to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the LEGO minifigure and we just had to share them with you.

How are LEGO® minifigures made? Here are all the different moulds that make the parts needed for one LEGO minifigure. Click/tap any image to enlarge.

The LEGO® Minifigure at 40: development prototypes

The LEGO® Group have sent us these amazing images to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the LEGO minifigure and we just had to share them with you.

Meet the minifigures before minifigures. Here are three of the original minifigures released in 1978 alongside their rather spooky developmental stages. Tap/click any image to enlarge.

Development of the LEGO® police minifigure

1. I'm glad they ditched ol' lumpy-squarehead guy pronto. 
2. The second one you probably recognise, as this non-moving style of minifigure was released in sets in the mid-1970s. It is interesting to note the filenames of the images we were sent indicate these are called "stage extras", a name I've never heard before.
3. Amusing that it took until 2013 for TLG to release the third one, but pretty cool that they did!
4.  The final figure as released in 1978 – note the stickered torso. Boy did I hate those as a kid! Sort of charming now though.

LEGO® Minifigures: Tara Wike & Austin Carlson interview

The LEGO® Minifigures theme has given us a great deal of interesting new parts, particularly minifigure accessories, since the arrival of the first blind bags eight years ago. At the Recognised LEGO Fan Media Days, Are J. Heiseldal sat down for a chat with designers Tara Wike and Austin Carlson to see if we could make them spill the beans on what the future holds (not really).

You represent a very successful line – since the beginning in 2010, and I did some counting, there’s been 441 figures released…
Tara: Oh my God. I lost count after we reached the 300 mark. I stopped counting then.

That’s 55 per year, pretty much one per week, for eight years. Are you going to slow down?
Austin: I don’t think so.
Tara: Not if I have anything to say about it.

LEGO® Ideas 21311 Voltron: Exclusive Niek van Slagmaat interview

Voltron is the latest set from LEGO® Ideas. Niek van Slagmaat (pictured below at San Diego ComicCon) designed the set based on the original fan submission by Lendy Tayag (pictured below in the picture in the picture) and you can read our review of the parts here. Meanwhile, Are J. Heiseldal met Niek in Billund to find out how the largest LEGO Ideas set to date came about.

What kind of response are you expecting from the big Voltron fans when this comes out?

Niek: I myself come from the fanbase, so if I was looking at this from that point of view, what I would probably immediately check out is whether it matches the original fan submission. We very much wanted to try and get the set as close as possible to the image that the original fan designer submitted. With LEGO, we have very rigorous quality standards, so we have to make sure things are stable and can last for the ages. This model has been going through an incredible amount – I’m fairly sure it’s a record amount – of long-term testing, because it was such a hotly debated topic within the company. But I’ll be mostly looking forward to seeing if people like the proportions, because for me personally, super robots are all about proportions, and for Voltron specifically, because it’s all animation, proportions change a lot from frame to frame. I’ve been working very closely with Lendy Tayag, the fan designer, to check in with him – he really knows his Voltron stuff, so he had a lot of feedback about the head designs for the lions and the general shaping and use of finishing elements like slopes and stuff in certain areas. So I’m very interested to see if they like the general expression of the model, if you like. That’s a very long answer to a very simple question.

Sustainable LEGO® elements: 40320 Plants from Plants

Here at New Elementary we usually talk about new shapes and colours of LEGO® elements but today we’re looking at a new material from which some botanical elements are now being made. By 2030, The LEGO Group (TLG) intend to use sustainable materials in all of their core products and packaging.

This article is a collaboration between Are J. Heiseldal who met TLG employees Matt Whitby (Environmental Responsibility Engagement) and Bistra Andersen (Senior Materials Platform Manager) at LEGO Fan Media Days in Billund, Tim Johnson, and Elspeth De Montes who has her hands on the limited edition gift-with-purchase set, 40320 Plants from Plants.

LEGO plastics

The first bricks made in 1949 were made from cellulose acetate, which warps over time. After some research by plastics companies, TLG replaced it in 1963 with acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, used to this day.

Press conference for LEGO® Technic 42083 Bugatti Chiron

Last week, on the final day of the LEGO® Fan Media Days in Billund, a special press conference was held for the release of LEGO Technic set 42083 Bugatti Chiron with designers from both Bugatti and the LEGO Technic teams.

On the podium, from left to right, are:

• Jachin Schwalbe (JS), Head of Chassis Development, Bugatti
• Achim Anscheidt (AA), Bugatti Design Director

• Aurélien Rouffiange (AR), LEGO Designer

• Andrew Woodman (AW), LEGO Technic Senior Design Manager


AFOLs used this unique opportunity to ask some interesting questions about the design of both the car and the set, and Are J. Heiseldal has transcribed the most interesting responses for you here.

LEGO® Fan Media Days 2018: What happened

Thanks to over 30 wonderful New Elementary readers who gave generously to our GoFundMe campaign, we were able to send Are J. Heiseldal to LEGO® Fan Media Days 2018 in Billund, Denmark this week.  In reverse chronological order, here's a taste of what happened and what interviews you can expect to read on New Elementary in the coming months!

LEGO TECHNIC 42083 Bugatti Chiron

On Friday the new Technic supercar for 2018 was announced in an exciting press event at LEGO House.

LEGO® Ideas Pop-Up Book: exclusive Samuel Johnson interview

We are all on tenterhooks awaiting further news of the upcoming LEGO® Ideas Voltron set. But yesterday the LEGO Ideas team instead announced the results of their latest review, which examined seven successful fan creations to decide which would be released as a real LEGO product later this year. Spoiler alert if you've not watched the reveal video... it's going to be Pop-Up Book, by Grant Davis and Jason Allemann.

Image © Jason Allemann/ Grant Davis

Thanks to the help of New Elementary readers, our reporter Are J. Heiseldal was inside LEGO HQ in Billund yesterday, for LEGO Fan Media Days, where he spoke to Senior Designer Samuel Johnson about Pop-Up Book and the other fan creations that didn't make it.

Walkie Scorchie vs. LEGO®

The last time London architecture threatened my very existence was in June 2000 on the day the Millennium Bridge opened and then unexpectedly wobbled a lot. It was thrilling, until I thought about those "When Things Go Wrong" kind of TV shows and wondered if I was about to end up in the Thames. So when I read yesterday that a new city office block under construction, nicknamed the Walkie Talkie thanks to its shape, was inadvertently creating a concentrated beam of sunlight strong enough to melt the plastic on the body of someone's Jaguar (and, it was soon discovered, hot enough to fry an egg), I had to check it out. If only to answer the terribly important question facing us all - can it melt LEGO?

A neat excision

A friend recently joked that my blog spoils the surprise of happening across a new element when you open a set. Actually I suspected he was only half-joking, so today I'm pleased to report his claim is not true!

Flat Tile 2X2, Round

Element ID TBC | Design ID 14769

Colour White

This element turned up in my 70002 Lennox' Lion Attack, a set which I happened to pluck from my build queue yesterday for no special reason other than it was close to my bed where I lay mafted by the unseasonable English warmth. Clearly it doesn't always come in that set - as 70002 has been available all year and as far as I can see, and no-one has mentioned this alternate part yet - so please don't buy the set expecting to get your hands on it! In fact, good luck getting your hands on it quickly, as there's no way yet to easily obtain it on BrickLink or Replacement Parts. Think of it as a poor man's Mr Gold for now.

And in the darkness bind them

Pl.Round 1X1 W. Throughg. Hole

Element ID 6050850 | Design ID 85861

Colour Yellow [BL] / Bright Yellow [TLG]

There’s something radical about this new element that really makes me happy.

It’s not a new part. The white element has been available for four (glorious) years. So obviously a yellow one adds nothing new to functionality! And bringing a part out in yellow is hardly a radical move. What’s so amazing is that the new yellow element comes in actual sets; the white element only came in LEGO® Games. So what? As consumers we don’t care if we’re obtaining them via a game or a set?