LEGO BrickLink Designer Program Series 1 now open for submissions

The first series of the newly-revamped LEGO BrickLink Designer Program is now open for submissions, offering another avenue to get your LEGO build turned into an official set.

Based on the pilot program that ran in 2021 and 2022, the final evolution of the BrickLink Designer Program sticks with the crowdfunding model, allowing LEGO fans to pre-order sets designed by fellow members of the community. It’s a bit like LEGO Ideas, only with an added layer of exclusivity – the resulting sets will only enjoy a single production run – and less of a barrier to entry.

That’s because where LEGO Ideas requires users to rack up 10,000 votes to have their projects progress to the review stage – and then possibly turned into a mass-produced LEGO set – the BrickLink Designer Program’s models will be selected by a combination of public votes and an in-house panel of judges. The fan vote will factor into the judges’ decisions, although it won’t be binding.

It’s a slightly different process to the original BrickLink Designer Program, which saw multiple sets racing to secure enough backers in the crowdfunding stage. This time, the LEGO Group will choose just five designs to offer up for pre-order, and any that receive 3,000 pre-orders will enter production. (Which means that there’s a chance none of them will.)

Any set that does get enough backers will be capped at 20,000 units, with a maximum of two copies per household. The submission window for designs is open now through February 28, and the fan vote will take place from March 7 to 31. The five chosen sets will be revealed in late May, and the LEGO Group will then begin working with builders to finalise the models for release.

Crowdfunding will begin in February 2024, with products shipping in the second half of next year. If you want to be in with a chance of seeing your design turned into an official LEGO set – like the 15 produced through the pilot BrickLink Designer Program – you’ve got just under a month to upload your submission to the secondary marketplace.

The guidelines for BrickLink Designer Program models are a little more restrictive than those at LEGO Ideas, presumably because these sets will enjoy a more streamlined production process than those generated through the LEGO Group’s major crowdsourcing platform.

You can check out the full submission guidelines by clicking here, but the headlines are: no IPs are allowed, models must be between 400 and 4,000 pieces, and you can only include a maximum of one minifigure per 325 parts. There are also restrictions on pieces you can use – only those in the platform’s digital designing software, BrickLink Studio – and exactly how you can use those elements.

Submissions for Series 1 of the BrickLink Designer Program will close on February 28. Click here to submit your entry.

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