Subject:
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Re: Nicely now. What do you think of the new colors?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego, lugnet.general
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Date:
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Sat, 17 Jan 2004 21:42:18 GMT
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Here is what I think of the new colors.
Firstly, from a business standpoint:
1) The color change is baffling.
In a time when the LEGO company is in finanial straits, and each business
decision it makes becomes the more crucial, how could it possibly have passed as
a good idea to spend great amounts of company time and effort on a move that
will only confuse and inconvenience LEGO consumers while doing nothing to
attract new customers?
2) The color change was handled terribly.
By not alerting consumers to the change in colors either beforehand or on the
boxes of the new sets, the regular LEGO customer will not make the discovery of
the color-mismatch (old vs new) until they've already bought and opened the new
sets, raising the likelihood of confusion or disappointment. And to find out
that even LEGO employees were unaware of this change until after the fact is
just mind-boggling.
Secondly, from a personal standpoint on the colors themselves:
The original light gray and dark gray colors have become old, fond friends.
Both have been immensely useful colors of LEGO bricks to build with, and I am
saddened by their passing.
The replacement light gray looks to be a slightly less useful version of its
former self. Being very-close but not-quite-a-match to the original light gray,
it promises headaches for anyone who sorts their bricks by color and annoyances
any MOC builders who own both original and new bricks but want their creations
to have a uniform light gray color.
The new dark gray with its bluish tone seems to be a significantly less useful
version of its previous self. It is different enough from the original dark
gray that it doesn't even seem to really be a "replacement" color, but rather a
new color that happens to be getting introduced at the same time that dark gray
is being retired.
The original brown hasn't been around nearly as long (in any reasonable
quantity), but has proven very useful. The new brown with its reddish tone
seems somewhat less useful, and like the new gray, it will cause the same sorts
of inconveniences for anyone with both the original and replacement brown bricks
in their collection.
Finally, the color change seems at odds with LEGO's "core value" of
compatibility throughout their product lines and throughout the ages. It seems
especially ironic that this is the first noticeable new step taken by a company
that is pledging a return to its core values. And unfortunately it makes us,
the LEGO fans, worry about the company's future business decisions.
-Brendan Powell Smith
PS. There does seem to be a certain futility to all this, given that the
company is not even considering re-instating the original colors. (Though with
the rapid rate and apparent ease with which LEGO has been producing new colors
over the past few years it seems unreasonable to say that a re-instatement would
be out of the question, no matter what the public reaction to the replacement
colors.)
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Nicely now. What do you think of the new colors?
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| It's only a couple of weeks in the new year, and it looks like it's going to be an interesting 2004! I have a request, but before I go any further, let me say that personally, I understand the concerns surrounding the color changes. I know many of (...) (20 years ago, 15-Jan-04, to lugnet.lego, lugnet.general, FTX) !!
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