Dear LEGO Ideas members,
As the year quickly draws to a close, we'd like to take a few moments to look back at what's been an exciting and very busy year for LEGO Ideas. There have been several new LEGO Ideas sets, many different contests, plenty of platform updates and a new experience in the form of Activities.
We hope you've all enjoyed the ride as much as we have and join us in looking back at what's happened over the past year.
New LEGO Ideas Sets
It's been an incredible year when we consider the number of sets that have been launched. This year we were fortunate to be able to give you all 5 regular LEGO Ideas sets plus the additional Gift with Purchase set! It's certainly a milestone worth celebrating!
No doubt most of you are more than aware which sets have launched, but for those of you just tuning in here's an overview of what was released this year. Which one was your favourite?
- 21316 The Flintstones by Andrew Clark
- 21317 Steamboat Willie by Máté Szabó
- 21318 Treehouse by Kevin Feeser
- 21319 Central Perk by Aymeric Fievet
- 21320 Dinosaur Fossils by Jonathan Brunn
- 40335 Space Rocket Ride by Mark Smiley
For those who are already looking toward the future, we have also announced the new sets, which have been approved and are currently in development! We can't wait to launch Sesame Street 123, the International Space Station, Playable LEGO Piano and The Pirate Bay in the future! Stay tuned to our announcements as soon as we have more information to share.
We've also got a number of Product Ideas currently in review with an announcement planned for early 2020, while on the 6th of January, the next review qualification period is closing as well!
Finally, to make space for all these new sets and to allow even more LEGO fans the chance of seeing their ideas turned into real LEGO sets, we will be retiring the NASA Apollo Saturn V, Ship in a Bottle, Pop Up Book, Voltron: Defender of the Universe as well as TRON: Legacy sets. We would like to once again congratulate and thank Felix Stiessen, Valerie Roche, Jake Sadovich, Grant Davis, Jason Allemann, Lendy Tayag as well as Tom and Drew for their achievement. It's been an incredible journey. But as they say, when one door closes, another opens; so perhaps we'll see them as Fan Designers once again in the future.
Contests
2019 has also been the first full year of contests being run on LEGO Ideas after LEGO Rebrick closed (rest in pieces Rebrick). We held 15 different contests this year; 16 if you count the special 10 year anniversary fan vote, and had more than 6000 entries. Wow!
The reality is we shouldn't really be surprised at the kinds of LEGO models you all can build, but time and time again you blow our minds with incredible out-of-the-box creative designs. It really goes to show how different everyone is and how different people tackle different design challenges.
Thanks to everyone who pours so much passion and time into inspiring the LEGO community with your builds!
^ A small example of the contest entries. These are by ArmoredBricks, yop1172., Versteinert, vidaandras, Stevenhoward27, ExeSandbox and Disneybrick55.
Activities
In May, we soft-launched a new way of participating on LEGO Ideas called Activities, which is all about building for fun. We put up a new challenge on a weekly basis so there's always something new to participate in. It's a great way to challenge yourself to build something new or try out new building styles or techniques without the pressure of competition. In addition, you only have 1 week to build, so it's not about building huge creations, but rather about building what you can muster in a short time frame.
Check out some of the impressive activity entries below by MaxVonBrick, bananabrother, Brick Broadcasting, Leewan, LuisPG, Twiggy9997, Maestro Nicola, Brickenberg and Legoluva, or explore even more.
LEGO Ideas Experience
Our team has been working hard to continually improve the overall LEGO Ideas experience and in fact we've launched more member-facing updates than ever before.
Here's a couple of the big ones that I've been particularly excited about:
- Activities
- A new Product Ideas submit flow, including the ability to verify whether or not you can submit a particular licensed property
- Basic analytics for Product Idea creators
- Improved navigation
- More member recognition (new badges and user labels)
- Product Idea editing
What improvement area(s) have you been particularly happy about? Where do you hope improvements are made in 2020? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, but if you have very specific thoughts concerning the digital experience of LEGO Ideas then head on over to our support site, where you can post a new suggestion for what you think we can improve on or change. You can even vote for other suggestions if someone else has already suggested the same thing. Voting for other suggestions gives us a better idea of what many of you think is truly important.
Happy Holidays
To all those who celebrate Christmas, we hope you've enjoyed the time off with your family and friends and to all those celebrating the impending New Year, we wish you all the best as we head into 2020! We look forward to seeing you here on LEGO Ideas very soon.
Happy New Year
The LEGO Ideas Team
By
hasanjensen