Introducing BriXtar – an app for LEGO fans

Jonathan Jehander explains to Brick Fanatics why BriXtar is designed to be a must-use app for LEGO fans

BriXtar is an app that encourages LEGO fans to get together and share their creativity. In the modern digital age, there are many different ways that fans can connect online and share their creations; any new tool has to stand out from the crowd. Jonathan Jehander, one of the two founders of BriXtar, takes the time to explain to Brick Fanatics what BriXtar is all about.

How can users become part of the Brixtar community?

BriXtar is free and available for download on both App Store and Google Play.

What is the purpose of Brixtar?

Our vision with BriXtar is to give people that loves the brick at tool to explore and develop their creativity. We don’t primarily see the brick as something to play with in a traditional way, we see it as a tool to create art. We believe that everyone can create magic with LEGO, no matter age, gender or where you come from.

Today there are thousands of people that uses BriXtar every month and we are so excited to see that the community are encouraging each other to develop their creative skills. In that way we feel like we have succeeded with our vision. However, we still have a long way to go and we are very humble about the future – it is not a walk in the park to start up a community from scratch.

When did Brixtar launch? What was the original intention?

We launched in November last year after working on the platform for over two years. Soon we will reach 20,000 users.

I started BriXtar together with my good friend Martin. We have both loved LEGO since childhood and came out of our dark age when our kids got old enough for the brick. We saw how much the bricks had developed since we were kids and we were amazed by the global AFOL community that had understood the full potential of the brick. Seeing all of these awesome builds on Facebook, Flickr and Instagram inspired us a lot. What if we could make a difference for the next generation of LEGO builders, let them be inspired by these people and help them develop their creative skills?

It has been a long journey since and a lot has happened on the way, but the vision we have today is pretty much the same as our original intention that we had when we came up with the idea almost four years ago. Still we are only in the beginning of our journey and we are so grateful to all of the people who contribute to the BriXtar community every day.

You mentioned you grew up as a LEGO fan, what was your experience with the brick?

As I am 36 this year, my own LEGO journey started around 1987. I especially had a thing for the Castle theme and still become nostalgic when seeing the 6066 Camouflaged Outpost. Another big favourite was the Classic Space theme and I still remember the Christmas when I finally got the set that I was longing for, 6990 Monorail Transport System, which I felt was huge at that time.

What does Brixtar offer to LEGO fans?

On BriXtar everyone who wants to can share their own made builds. I really want to emphasise ”everyone” in that sentence, as we have worked very hard to make sure that BriXtar won’t be a platform only for the master builder elite. You don’t start by being a master builder. It takes thousands of hours and you need feedback and encouragement on the way. We hope BriXtar could be the platform where you get that feedback.

Besides sharing pictures of your builds, BriXtar also offers an opportunity to share the instructions. By uploading an ldr file of your build (made in LDD, Stud.io or in any other freeware), BriXtar can auto-generate instructions in 3D and the part list. By registering your LEGO sets you can match your bricks to all of the uploaded builds and see what else you can build. Right now there are over 700 builds available on the platform. For example, there are over 20 alternative builds available on the Creator Surfer Van and the BriXtar artist Buildinst has alone made over 30 alternatives on the Creator Green Cruiser. Extremely impressive.

Another feature on BriXtar is the challenge section, which has become very popular. The users can start their own building challenges and challenge each other. We are so excited that our users are setting up their own challenges. We are thinking about putting up some kind of limitation on the possibility to start up new ones as there are a few too many right now.

BriXtar is available to download for iPhone and Android devices.