 | |
| Formerly | BrickBay |
|---|---|
| Company type | Private |
| Industry | E-commerce, internet forum |
| Founded | 19 June 2000 |
| Founder | Dan Jezek |
| Fate | Acquired by The Lego Group |
| Headquarters | , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Lego parts |
Number of employees | < 30 |
| Parent | The Lego Group |
| Website | www |
BrickLink is the largest online marketplace for reselling Lego products. Its website also offers resources for Lego fans, including an extensive catalog of products and parts and community forums. [1]
BrickLink was founded by Dan Jezek, who had made it after other online sellers were impressed by the website he made for his own Lego store. Originally named BrickBay, the site started operation on June 19, 2000. After online retailer eBay challenged the use of "Bay" in the name, it was renamed BrickLink in 2002. [2]
In 2010, Jezek died suddenly, [3] and his mother Eliska Jezkova succeeded him as CEO. In 2013, the site was acquired by Nexon founder and CEO Jung-Ju "Jay" Kim, who transferred its assets into BrickLink Limited, a Hong Kong-based company. [4] Kim, a Lego fan himself, created some of the most important features of the current BrickLink website, including the BrickLink AFOL Designer Program (now the BrickLink Designer Program) which sold top-rated fan designs as packaged, unofficial sets, and the BrickLink Studio digital design software.
On November 26, 2019, The Lego Group acquired BrickLink Ltd. for an undisclosed amount. [5] [6] [7]
Studio is a freeware computer program for creating virtual 3D models with Lego bricks. It was released on BrickLink as an open beta on December 13, 2016. [8] The next major update to the program, version 2.0, was released in open beta on July 18, 2018. Multiple features were added to the program, including a photorealistic rendering option, BrickLink integration for ordering parts to recreate the model physically and an instruction manual generator. In January 2022, The Lego Group announced that BrickLink Studio would replace the Lego Digital Designer (LDD) software as the official virtual Lego building software going forward. [9]
In 2018, to celebrate 60 years since the modern Lego interlocking brick design was created and patented, BrickLink teamed up with The Lego Group to create the AFOL Designer Program. It allowed users to upload their own Lego set designs into a competition. The winning designs had the opportunity to be crowdfunded and, if successful, sold on the BrickLink marketplace. [10]
Lego is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. Lego consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks made of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) that accompany an array of gears, figurines called minifigures, and various other parts. Its pieces can be assembled and connected in many ways to construct objects, including vehicles, buildings, and working robots. Assembled Lego models can be taken apart, and their pieces can be reused to create new constructions.
Lego Mindstorms is a discontinued line of educational kits for building programmable robots based on Lego bricks. It was introduced on 1 September 1998 and was discontinued on 31 December 2022.
LUGNET is one of the largest online Adult Fan of Lego (AFOL) communities. It was founded by Todd Lehman and Suzanne Rich.
Lego began in 1932 in the carpentry workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a Danish furniture maker. During the Great Depression he began to make miniature versions of his products, which inspired him to produce toys. The company was named "Lego" in 1934, a contraction from the Danish phrase "leg godt", meaning "play well".
Lego Creator is a Lego theme for generic models. Creator sets have few specialized bricks to create buildings, creatures, vehicles, and robots. Some sets featured instructions for three different possible builds from the bricks included and most sets in recent years have used the 3-in-1 label. Creator is also a parent theme to Lego Icons, a Lego subtheme for adolescents and adults featuring advanced building techniques and large piece counts, mostly known for Modular Buildings and detailed vehicles. Creator also has had several other subthemes such as X-Pods and mosaics.
Nexon Co., Ltd. is a South Korean video game developer and publisher. It develops and publishes titles including MapleStory, Blue Archive, Dungeon & Fighter, Sudden Attack, and KartRider. Headquartered in Japan, the company has offices in South Korea, the United States, Taiwan and Thailand.
Brickworld is an annual LEGO fan convention that takes place in various midwest locations in the United States. The convention was founded in 2007 and mostly consists of AFOLs or TFOLs, where they display and share their creations made of LEGO bricks. Brickworld Chicago consists of both a private convention and a public exposition, where as other locations only have the public exposition. Brickworld Chicago occurs annually on the third weekend in June.
Lego Digital Designer is a discontinued CAD software made by Qube Software and the Lego Group. It allows people to design a virtual model using a selection of virtual Lego bricks. These models could be saved locally as uploaded to the Lego website for sharing and ordering as a physical product. It is available for macOS and Windows, but only as a 32-bit application, which means that it no longer runs on current versions of macOS. The program allows users to build models using virtual Lego bricks, in a computer-aided design like manner. Until 16 January 2012, these could be uploaded, along with instructions and a box design, to the Lego Design byME website, from where the models could be ordered for delivery as a real, packaged set. Users can also take screenshots of their models and store the models on their computer in an .LXF file. On 9 November 2011, Lego declared that the Design byME service was going to end on 16 January 2012, due to its failure to meet quality expectations and for being too complex. In its absence, custom brick orders have had to be made via the Pick a Brick service. The closing of Design byME has not affected the ability of users to print custom instructions for their models.
Lego Architecture is a Lego theme that aims to "celebrate the past, present and future of architecture through the Lego Brick". The brand includes a series of Lego sets designed by "Architectural Artist" Adam Reed Tucker, and each contain the pieces and instructions to build a model of a famous architectural building or city skyline in micro-scale.
Lego Minifigures are a 2010 Lego theme based on a set of collectible Lego minifigures. Each figure is an original character with new clothing and facial designs, and many contain previously unseen accessories. Each series usually contains 16 different minifigures; however, some series contain as few as 9 minifigures, while others contain up to 22. Since 2021, the number of different minifigures for a series is set to 12. In 2023, the Disney 100-anniversary series came out, bringing the total number of figures to 18, although it was once again reduced to 12 with the second Marvel series. This series also introduced paper boxes, instead of the plastic bags, making it no longer possible to feel up the pieces for each figure.
Lego Ninjago is a Lego theme that was created in 2011 and a flagship brand of The Lego Group. It is the first theme to be based on ninjas since the discontinuation of the Lego Ninja theme in 2000. It was produced to coincide with the animated television series Ninjago, which was superseded in 2023 by a new series titled Ninjago: Dragons Rising.
Lego Ideas is a website run by Chaordix and The Lego Group, which allows users to submit ideas for Lego products to be turned into potential sets available commercially, with the original designer receiving 1% of the royalties. It started in 2008 as an offshoot of the Japanese company Cuusoo, named after the Japanese word 空想 kūsō.
Lego Dino was a Lego theme that was first introduced in 2011 after the discontinued Lego Dino Attack/Dino 2010 theme. The theme was inspired by Jurassic Park film as well as various dinosaurs films. It was eventually discontinued by the end of 2012.
Mixels is an American animated television series that aired on Cartoon Network and was co-produced by The Lego Group and Cartoon Network Studios. The series first aired on February 12, 2014, with a new episode of Teen Titans Go!. The series revolves around the Mixels, small creatures that can mix and combine with one another. The Mixels are opposed by the evil Nixels, small, discolored and evil creatures led by King Nixel.
Kim Jung-ju, also known as Jay Kim, was a South Korean businessman, investor, and founder of Korea's largest gaming company, Nexon. He was the chairman and CEO of NXC Corporation, the holding company of Nexon, and a partner at Collaborative Fund, a New York-based venture capital firm.
Lego House is a 12,000-square metre building filled with 25 million Lego bricks in Billund, Denmark, located near Legoland and the headquarters of The Lego Group. It is also known as Home of the Brick with reference to Billund, where Lego originates. Visitors can experience a variety of activities during their visit, including physically and digitally building with Lego bricks, programming robots and animating models. The centre's visitor experience includes four experience zones, two exhibitions and the Lego Museum, which showcases the history of the Lego brand and company.
Lego Icons is a series of Lego construction toys aimed at a demographic of adolescents and adults. Beginning in 2000 without an established logo or icon, Icons features models such as aircraft, sculptures, and world buildings, selling as exclusives with numerous specialized elements and complex building techniques. Icons is considered a challenge to both the target audience and Lego designers. All Icons sets are classified into specified sub-themes; however, the entirety of Icons is classified as a sub-theme of Lego Creator.
Lego Brick Sketches is a Lego theme that recreates iconic characters as stylised portraits. It was first introduced in June 2020. Following the launch of Lego DOTS, a theme mainly targeted towards children, the Lego Brick Sketches theme is the first bas-relief portraits concept to be launched by the Lego Group.
Lego FORMA was the first and only crowdfunded Lego theme. The theme's builds were inspired by fish, consisting of a base "Koi" set and several separate "skin" sets to customize the build. It was licensed and crowdfunded via Indiegogo, and managed by the LEGO Group. FORMA was considered to be a development upon the ideas of the 2011 Lego Muji theme, which combined paper and LEGO bricks. The theme was introduced on 1 January 2019 and was discontinued by the end of December the same year.
Lego fandom is the fan community that exists around the Lego toys.
