THIS MONTH: Play Well: The Story of the Iconic Lego Bricks

Lego is a well-known trademark and a household name. The distinctive-looking plastic bricks are part of most kids’ growing up process allowing them to let their imagination run wild and explore their creativity without the fear of failure. There exist an estimated number of 86 Lego bricks for every person on the Earth. The name LEGO is derived from the Danish phrase LEG GODT, meaning “play well“.

Lego wasn’t always plastic

The inventor of the Lego blocks was Ole Kirk Christiansen a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932. He started to call his company LEGO in 1934. Christiansen held a contest among his staff to name the company, offering a bottle of homemade wine as a prize. He himself was considering two names, “Legio” (“Legion of toys”) and “Lego,” a self-made contraction from the Danish phrase leg godt (“play well”). Christiansen selected LEGO. Later the Lego Group discovered that “Lego” could be loosely interpreted as “I put together” or “I assemble” in Latin so it has proved to be a really fitting name.

The company started producing plastic toys in 1947. 1949 was the year when an early version of the now-familiar interlocking bricks was first made. They were called “Automatic Binding Bricks”. The bricks were a development of the traditional stackable wooden blocks of the time. The Lego Group’s motto is ’det bedste er ikke for godt’ which means “only the best is the best” (more literally “the best is never too good”). This motto, which is still used today, was created by Christiansen to encourage his employees never to skimp on quality. By 1951 plastic toys accounted for half of the LEGO company’s output.

A universal system

Lego bricks are joined together by studs on the top, and holes in the bottom of the brick commonly known as the stud-and-tube connection. The Lego pieces of all varieties constitute a universal system. They may vary in design and purpose but each piece remains compatible in some way with the existing pieces. Lego bricks from 1958 still interlock with those currently made, and Lego sets for young children are compatible with those made for teenagers or adults. Precision is a key factor in achieving this. Each Lego piece must be manufactured to an exacting degree of precision. When two pieces are put together they must fit firmly, yet should be easily disassembled. The machines that manufacture Lego bricks have tolerances as small as 10 micrometres. According to the Lego Group, about eighteen bricks out of every million fail to meet the required standard. In the extremely rare event your Lego set is missing a piece or includes a broken piece, LEGO will gladly send you replacement bricks at no expense. There is a tiny three-digit number stamped on the interior wall of all Lego bricks. The number indicates which mould was used and where in the production line the brick was located. In case of a defect, LEGO can easily trace the error back to its origin and fix the problem.

Lego factories recycle all but about 1 percent of their plastic waste from the manufacturing process. If the plastic cannot be reused in Lego bricks, it is processed and sold to industries that can make use of it. The Lego Group estimates that in five decades it has produced 400 billion Lego blocks.

Lots of figures, lots of themes

Lego bricks come in many shapes and sizes. Since the 1950s, the Lego Group has released thousands of sets with different themes, including space, robots, pirates, trains, Vikings, castles, dinosaurs, undersea exploration, and the wild west to name a few. 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). Over the years, LEGO has licensed themes from numerous cartoon and film franchises and even some from video games. These include Batman, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Minecraft.

1961 and 1962 saw the introduction of the first Lego wheels, an addition that expanded the potential for building cars, trucks, buses, and other vehicles from Lego bricks.

In 1969, the Duplo system went on sale. Duplo bricks are much larger than Lego bricks, making them safer for young children. The two systems are compatible: Lego bricks can be fitted onto Duplo bricks. The name Duplo comes from the Latin word duplus, which translates as double, meaning that a Duplo brick is exactly twice as big as a Lego building brick (twice height by twice width by twice depth = eight times the volume of a brick). In 1971, Lego began to target girls by introducing furniture pieces and dollhouses.

The first minifigures were produced in 1978 and the first Lego minifigure was a police officer. The small Lego people had posable arms and legs, and a single head with a smiling face allowing the construction of towns populated with smiling minifigure Lego citizens. The figures were simple so that they could represent people from anywhere in the world. Later on, they’ve become more sophisticated and specialized. Until 1989, Lego minifigures only came in yellow-skin colour with a standard smiling face. That year the Lego Group expanded the array of facial expressions with beards and eye patches, sunglasses, lipstick, and eyelashes. In 2003, NBA basketball minifigures were the first to be based on real people, such as Kobe Bryant. For the 2012 Summer Olympics in London LEGO released a special Lego minifigures series and for the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio, they released a kit with the Olympic and Paralympic mascots Vinicius and Tom.

Unbelievable numbers

LEGO is a really big business. 1,300 Lego pieces are made per second, 78,000 per minute and 4,680,000 per hour, and seven Lego sets are sold every single second. LEGO is technically the world’s number one tire manufacturer, producing 306 million rubber tires every year. At 5,805,846 pieces, LEGO’s 12.8016-metre tall replica of London’s Tower Bridge holds the Guinness World Record for the largest Lego statue. Two eight-stud Lego bricks (2×4) can be combined in 24 different ways and three eight-stud Lego bricks can be combined in 1,060 ways. Six bricks of 2 × 4 studs can be combined in 915,103,765 ways. The moulds used to produce Lego elements are accurate to within 4my/0.004mm – less than the width of a single hair. This accuracy is what LEGO refers to as clutch power. LEGO currently have more than 60 different colours in production. There are more than 3,700 different Lego elements. Approximately 86% of the Lego minifigures are male.

With around 400 billion bricks circulating globally, LEGO is recognized as the world’s largest toy company. 400 billion bricks stacked together are 3839999.391 kilometres tall, which is ten times higher than the Moon. The Lego bricks sold in one year can wrap around the Earth five times. Globally, children spend 5 billion hours a year playing with Legos.