Lego Stacks Up Fifty

     Lego’s company motto – ‘Only the best is good enough’ – will never ring as true as it will on Monday 28th January. Lego has been entertaining generations of kids and adults worldwide for 50 years – that’s 18,262.1099 days, 438,290.639 hours and 26,297,438.3 minutes - in case you were wondering. The famous building blocks have remained a firm favourite in Britain for yeeeaaars and have brought entertainment to over 400 million brick building adults and children, inspiring some great and some not so great creations. There is more to Lego than just child’s play – there are actually architects and artists who dedicate their lives to building life-size sculptures made out of the tiny bricks which can sell for up to and even more than £10,000 each. If you want to get in on the action you will need at least 1.5 million bricks – so good luck with that! The simple toy has come a long way since it was first launched in 1961 and despite all the technological advances of half a century, the classic brick still retains its original 2x4 studs. In fact, all Lego pieces are compatible, so a brick from 1958 will interlock with one made today - unlike the majority of long-running toys that most adults wouldn’t be able to recognize from their childhood because they’ve undergone a huge technological transformation!! Whether the creators were being lazy we’ll never know, but it looks like it’s paid off.

Lego’s brilliant collection has grown considerably and has even gone high-tech over the decades adding a vast array of bricks, gears and figures to the collection, some of which I’m sure you’ve seen featured on this site. There are pirates, robots, dinosaurs and medieval castles, and some of the most popular playsets are based on Hollywood films, such as Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter and our latest favourite Indiana Jones.

Those clever folk at the Independent gave bucket loads of bricks to some of Britain’s most creative minds which allowed them to take a stroll down memory lane and let them get all creative on Lego’s ass. Alexa Chung – presenter of Freshly Squeezed on Channel 4 made a set of letters saying ‘I Love Lego’ whilst in between television shoots and let everyone believe she travels everywhere with a full set of Lego: “I was going to make a heart but I actually couldn't think how to do it because Lego does tend to lend itself to straight lines... I played with Lego quite a lot when I was little – it was my wet-playtime toy – but I don't remember ever making anything very impressive. I tried to build a horse once but it ended up looking more like a box.” Sir Paul Smith, one of Britain’s most successful fashion designers created a Rabbit because of the brands association with the cuddly creature. “I didn't play with Lego as a child, but my wife's grandchildren love it. The hardest thing is understanding the structure of it. Once you've got the hang of that, it's fantastic...The thing with Lego is that it's really basic and from it you can make things that are amazing. You can do a tower – or you can do a rabbit.”

Fun Factoids - Did you know...

- Two million Lego bricks are produced every hour of every day - there are 62 Lego pieces for every person on Earth.

- They are sold in 130 countries, to be played with by more than 400 million children - and adults.

- The company makes 306 million tyres a year to fit miniature cars and tractors - more than any tyre manufacturer in the world.

- The Lego Company was founded in 1932 by Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen. Understandably the first toys he created were wooden.

- It was not until 1958 that his son, Godtfred, developed the iconic plastic brick with its stud and hole design.

- Lego was launched in the U.S. in 1961.

- The name ‘Lego’ was developed from an amalgamation of the Danish words leg godt, which mean "play well".

- The bricks are so versatile that the LEGO Group has calculated that just six eight-stud bricks can be arranged in 915,103,765 different ways.

- LEGO Group is producing 15 billion components a year—that's 1.7 million items an hour, or 28,500 a minute.