LEGO designer reveals internal system for allocating printed parts versus stickers
Almost every LEGO fan will tell you that they prefer printed elements over stickers, so why don’t LEGO designers lean into that? Well, now we know.
The reveal of LEGO Ideas 21345 Polaroid OneStep SX-70 Camera has sparked the usual insight into how it was made, picking apart every change from the fan design and examining what new elements and, crucially, what stickers and printed parts have gone into creating the new set. There are some impressive uses of LEGO elements included in the upcoming LEGO Ideas set, including a new part to represent the white-edged red shutter button and a whole rainbow of elements used to create the iconic Polaroid colourscape on the front.
However, there are still some stickered elements, most notably the words ‘Polaroid Land Camera’ and ‘OneStep’. Considering nearly everyone would prefer those to be printed elements, despite how niche they are, why didn’t LEGO designer Jordan David Scott include them?
We already know that the LEGO Group prioritises prints for smaller parts or anything that will be especially tricky or obvious to misplace a sticker. However, Jordan has now revealed more details about how printed designs are allocated.
“We can’t make everything decorated. We can’t change every brick into every colour,” Scott explained in an interview with The Verge. “Otherwise the portfolio would just explode in complexity, so we have teams that manage the complexity level.”
To combat this issue, LEGO designers are all assigned a number of ‘frames’. When they need a part in a new colour, that costs them a frame. The same for a new piece, or bringing an older piece back out of retirement. Each year, every LEGO designer has a limited number of frames, meaning they need to make some difficult choices about what make the cut.
“If I have five products or 10 products coming out, I need to allocate where those frames go,” continued Scott.
To help those frames go further, LEGO designers will communicate with one another and through an automated system to highlight what recolours and new pieces are coming up.
“When someone puts in an order for a particular colour change, we can see it showing up in the library of digital bricks,” explained Scott. “If NINJAGO are making something we could use, we kind of have a dialogue and say, ‘Oh, we can use this as well, that would be great, so maybe we need to get you a frame or something to share it.’”
In the case of LEGO Ideas 21345 Polaroid OneStep SX-70 Camera, the design team spent three frames in total: one on the shutter button and two for the decorations on the film pack. They expected to spend more frames on ejecting photos too, before discovering a special rarely-used foil that worked well for the printed images.
LEGO Ideas 21345 Polaroid OneStep SX-70 Camera is available to pre-order now for £69.99 / $79.99 / €79.99, ahead of its official release on January 1, 2024.
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