The Making of a Brick

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The Making of a Brick
A screenshot of a Flash game using isometric graphics and cartoon-like sprites. The scene shows a field full of trees and grazing animals, and a road to the southeast that a truck is passing by on. The field contains the title "The Making of a Brick"; the word "Brick" is built out of giant LEGO bricks.
Title screen
Developer(s)Pop & Company
Publisher(s)The LEGO Group
Director(s)Vincent Lacava
Producer(s)
  • Kelly Galligan
  • Demetri Detsaridis[1]
Designer(s)Scott Gursky
Artist(s)Jesse McGowan
Writer(s)Frank Lantz
Composer(s)Michael Sweet
EngineMacromedia Flash
Platform(s)Web browser
ReleaseMay 20, 2003
Genre(s)Educational
Mode(s)Single-player

The Making of a Brick (also referred to as The Making of a LEGO Brick or The LEGO Factory Tour)[2][3] is an interactive Flash animation developed by Pop & Company and published on LEGO.com in 2003. It takes the viewer on a tour showing how LEGO bricks are made in factories, using a combination of animated graphics and live footage. The animation was originally released as a LEGO Club exclusive, but was later added to the website's company profile. It was featured in a number of advertising award events throughout 2004, and won awards in the Cannes Lions and Art Directors Club events.

Summary

Screenshot of the full game window, showing a video playing in Stage 3

The Making of a Brick is an interactive tour through a fictionalized version of the Kornmarken LEGO factory in Billund.[4] The tour demonstrates the process of manufacturing LEGO elements from raw plastic and how it had been nearly completely automated by that point.[5] The animation uses isometric graphics to depict the factory,[3] with short video clips showing the real interior of the factory and a text box describing each scene. The tour is divided into five stages that the viewer can manually progress through: granules, molding, transport, decorating and assembly, and packaging.[5] Each stage takes place in a different area of the factory, depicting different steps of the manufacturing process; an icon in the top left shows the status of the LEGO elements within that stage ("melted goo", brick form, etc.). Every stage also features two or three video clips activated by moving the mouse pointer over the numbered markers.

Development and reception

When LEGO asked us to create an animated factory tour we jumped at the chance to make an experience that didn't just illustrate the precision engineering of the famous Danish toy makers, but actually embodied it. The result is a tiny, isometric world where everything fits together with a satisfying click.

Pop & Company[3]

Pre-release screenshot; the factory machines have a different layout and color scheme than the final version

The Making of a Brick was created by Pop & Company (Pop&Co.), a New York City-based developer founded in 2000.[6] The studio was hired by the LEGO Group to develop an animated factory tour. The developers at Pop wanted the project to embody the "precision engineering" of the LEGO Group's toy manufacturing process.[3] The live footage used appears to have been filmed around 1995–1996, based on the elements and sets shown.

The interactive tour was first advertised in LEGO Magazine issues starting in May 2003,[7] and was publicly released on LEGO.com on May 20, 2003.[8] It was originally available in the LEGO Club section of the website and required a Club account to view;[9][10] it could be accessed using the Club Code "BRICKTOUR".[7] In November 2003,[11] the animation was added to the "About Us" section of LEGO.com, where it did not require an account to view.[12] It was also hosted on Pop's website,[5] where it remained online through 2017 (by which point the company had been renamed to This Is Pop).[13]

The Making of a Brick was featured on Yahoo! Picks on November 16, 2003.[5] In May 2004 it was awarded one Merit (five points) at the 2004 One Show in the Interactive category.[1][14] In June 2004 it won a Bronze Lion in the Cyber category at the Cannes Lions 51st International Advertising Festival.[15] That same month it won an Art Directors Club award.[16] In July 2004 it was selected from over 4,200 entries to be one of 92 examples of outstanding design work from 2003 in the 365: AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) annual design competition. The 92 winners were displayed in a public exhibition that opened at the AIGA National Design Center in New York City in December 2004 and traveled to other AIGA chapters and galleries in the United States through 2005.[17]

Scott Gursky, the project's designer, later designed the new LEGO Mindstorms website and NXTLOG in 2006.[18]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Making of the Brick". The One Show. 2004. 04180N. Archived from the original on August 6, 2023.
  2. ↑ "LEGO Club Home". LEGO.com. The LEGO Group. 2003. Archived from the original on June 11, 2003. The Making of a LEGO Brick – Ever wonder how your favorite toy is made? Take this factory tour!
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Davis, Myrna; Warren, Emily, eds. (2004). "Interactive". Art Directors Annual. Vol. 83. New York: The Art Directors Club, Inc. p. 397. ISBN 2-88046-8019.
  4. ↑ Pickering, David; Turpin, Nick; Jenner, Caryn (eds.). The Ultimate LEGO Book. London: Dorling Kindersley. p. 32. ISBN 0-7513-5948-3. The Kornmarken factory in Billund has 14 silos, built to hold up to 30 tonnes of granules each!
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 "The Making of a Brick". Yahoo! Picks. Sunnyvale, California: Yahoo! Inc. November 16, 2003. Archived from the original on February 20, 2004.
  6. ↑ "Clients". This Is Pop. Archived from the original on May 4, 2013.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "New on the Web!". LEGO Magazine (US ed.). Enfield: LEGO Systems, Inc. May 2003. p. 1.
  8. ↑ Pop & Company (May 20, 2003). "img238x130clubfea1.gif" (GIF). LEGO.com. The LEGO Group. File date (obtained via wget). Archived from the original on June 17, 2003.
  9. ↑ "Play". LEGO.com. The LEGO Group. 2003. Archived from the original on June 3, 2003. Take the Making of a LEGO Brick factory tour!
  10. ↑ Arnesson, Tobbe (12 November 2005). "Re: How bricks comes to be..." LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.general. Archived from the original on 29 October 2024. Here's the URL to the official one (you have to be a member but I'd be suprised if all Lugnetreaders were not members there already (OK, so I realize that's not the case))
  11. ↑ Pop & Company (November 12, 2003). "img185x261bricks.jpg" (JPG). LEGO.com. The LEGO Group. File date (obtained via wget). Archived from the original on October 22, 2005.
  12. ↑ "How the LEGO Bricks are Made". LEGO.com About Us - Corporate Information. The LEGO Group. 2003. Archived from the original on November 25, 2003. Do you know how LEGO bricks are made? Click here and a Flash movie will show you how the bricks are created and handled at the factory.
  13. ↑ "Making of a Brick". This Is Pop. Archived from the original on June 2, 2017.
  14. ↑ "Making of the Brick". The One Show (Press release). New York. May 12, 2004. Archived from the original on April 25, 2023.
  15. ↑ "Cyber Winners 2004" (PDF). Cannes Lions. June 29, 2004. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 21, 2004. TITLE: Making of a Brick – ADVERTISER: LEGO – PRODUCT: LEGO – ENTRANT COMPANY: Pop & Company – COUNTRY: USA
  16. ↑ "Announcements". This Is Pop. New York: Pop & Co. July 31, 2004. Archived from the original on April 11, 2013. It's been a busy few months at Pop for our Lego Factory Tour. In June it took home a Cannes Lion Award and an Art Directors' Club award. This month it was selected in the AIGA Annual Design Competition.
  17. ↑ "365: AIGA annual design competitions 2004 Selections". AIGA. New York. Archived from the original on July 19, 2004. Entry title: "Lego: Making of a Brick Website"; Pop & Co.; New York, NY – Category/Medium: Information design
  18. ↑ "Scott Gursky resume" (PDF). June 2, 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 10, 2007.

External links

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