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News Article
LEGOS: Building on success
By David Lesjak

A small toy developed by a northern European craftsman shortly after World War II still continues to spark the imagination and inspire creativity in children around the globe.

The journey to create one of the world’s most popular toys began in 1916, when 25-year old Ole Kristiansen purchased the Billund Joinery Manufacturing and Carpentry Workshop in the small town of Billund, Denmark. For the next 16 years the Danish carpenter built custom homes and handcrafted furniture for area residents. In 1924, Kristiansen’s shop burned to the ground in a fire started when his three sons played with matches – the inferno destroyed all of his tools, templates, parts inventory, and finished product.

Shortly after rebuilding his carpentry shop, Kristiansen faced two more calamities – first, his wife died, leaving him to raise his children on his own, and second, the Great Depression swept the globe. In an attempt to keep costs under control as orders declined, Kristiansen began building miniature samples of his work, which he showed to prospective clients. As money was often in short supply, Kristiansen traded his wares to local farmers in exchange for food.

When sales continued to fade, Kristiansen diversified and began producing wooden children’s toys. The shop’s first bestseller was a line of yo-yos. When the fad faded the ever-resourceful Dane used leftover stock as wheels on other toys. During this time, son Godtfred began apprenticing with his father.

Affordable wooden toys soon began to overtake the production of furniture. Pull toys dominated the company’s toy line and included a pony and cart, mallard duck, cat, rooster, a monkey seated atop a car, and “Clumsy Hans and his billy goat.” Many of these toys featured multiple moving parts.

In 1934 Kristiansen held a contest amongst his staff to find a name for his little company, with the winner receiving a bottle of homemade wine. Two suggestions ultimately vied for first place: “Legio,” which implied a “legion of toys,” and Kristiansen’s own entry, “LEGO,” a combination of the Danish words LEg Godt, which translated meant “play well.” Kristiansen’s name won. By 1939 Kristiansen had enough work to employ 10 fulltime staff members.

In 1947 Kristiansen diversified and purchased a plastic injection-molding machine, the first for a Danish company. Within four years, fully one-half of the company’s toy line was made from the relatively new material. Some of the company’s first plastic toys included a fish-shaped baby rattle, a ball for infants, and an educational road safety game called “Monopoli.”

Also in 1947 the father and son team acquired and examined interlocking plastic bricks marketed under the trade name “Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks.” The toy bricks were manufactured by the British firm Kiddicraft, and were the brainchild of child psychologist Hilary Harry Fisher Page.

In 1949, the LEGO Group began production of interlocking plastic building bricks called the “Automatic Binding Brick.” The first bricks were made of cellulose acetate and looked similar to the current day LEGO bricks with two exceptions: the bricks were completely hollow on the underside, and they featured side slits, which enabled windows and doors to be connected to the bricks. The round studs found atop the bricks allowed them to be stacked with some degree of sturdiness. Initial sales of the toy brick were extremely disappointing and many shipments were returned to the factory unsold.

In 1950, 30-year old Godtfred was appointed by his father to the position of Junior Marketing Director. In 1953 the bricks were renamed “LEGO Mursten,” or LEGO Bricks,” and the following year the LEGO name was officially registered in Denmark.

After attending a toy fair in London in 1954, Godtfred heard a colleague complain about the lack of a structured “system” for toys. In other words, toys were being produced with no relation or connection to other toys in the marketplace. After hearing this remark, Godtfred hit upon a novel idea that would transform the family company into a world leader.

In 1955, a new marketing campaign promoted LEGO Bricks as a creative toy system, or “System of Play” - each new LEGO product was promoted as being compatible with all previously produced LEGO products, giving additional value to all of the sets.

This new “System of Play” eventually led to the production of 28 different construction sets. The first set marketed as a system was “Town Plan No. 1,” which included a soft plastic street board imprinted with building plots, roadways, crosswalks, and sidewalks, as well as several three-dimensional plastic vehicles, street signs, trees and shrubs. The set also contained enough bricks and windows to construct seven different buildings, including a hotel and an Esso gas station. The “System” eventually propelled the company into the top ranks of global toy producers.

LEGO Bricks in their current incarnation were launched in 1958. The retooled brick now featured the addition of hollow tubes on the underside. This new attribute gave the bricks clutch, allowing them to be stacked and locked together with more stability.

In 1959 a formal design department was created. The so-called “Futura” division was responsible for the creation of new LEGO sets. The company boasted 140 employees.

As demand for the LEGO Brick mushroomed, the company’s ranks swelled to 450 employees.

In 1962 an additional element of versatility was added to the LEGO system, when wheels were introduced. The decade also saw the introduction of one-third sized bricks, a 4.5-volt train motor, a 12-volt motor, magnetic coupling bricks, and sets with building instructions. Eighteen million sets were sold in 1967, and 218 different shapes and elements were now available to consumers.

One of the biggest changes to LEGO Bricks, since the addition of hollow tubes, occurred in 1963, when Acrylontrile Butadiene Styrene, (ABS), replaced cellulose acetate as the base material used in the production of bricks. The changeover to ABS came about for several reasons: the material is non-toxic, resistant to heat, salt, scratching and fading, and allowed for better molding. ABS LEGO Bricks produced in 1963 still retain their shape, color and clutch some 47 years later, and they can be used with LEGO Bricks produced today.

A state-of-the art LEGO manufacturing plant opened in June 1987 at the company headquarters in Billund. The facility operates 24/7 and is capable of producing 2.4 million bricks per hour. Over 16 billion LEGO elements were manufactured at the plant in 2007.

Fifty-five stock colors are currently available to designers. These colors can be further combined to create additional shades. The Billund factory features 12 molding halls, which contain a total of 775 molding machines. One employee and one technician are responsible for 72 of the machines.

When tourists and locals continuously crowded the company’s headquarters to see special LEGO sculptures, a decision was made to build a park showcasing the LEGO brand. On June 7, 1968 the world’s LEGOLAND Park was opened in Billund. Some 625,000 enthusiasts visited the three-acre park in the first year. The park was eventually expanded to more than eight times its original size, and now attracts more than one million visitors per year. Other LEGOLAND parks were built in the United Kingdom, Germany, and California.

Special Edition sets have included LEGO brick replicas of historic structures including the Hancock Tower, Empire State Building, Seattle Space Needle, and Sears Tower.

11/16/2010
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