To LUGNET HomepageTo LUGNET News HomepageTo LUGNET Guide Homepage
 Help on Searching
 
Post new message to lugnet.dear-legoOpen lugnet.dear-lego in your NNTP NewsreaderTo LUGNET News Traffic PageSign In (Members)
 Dear LEGO / 1257
1256  |  1258
Subject: 
Idea Books
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.dear-lego
Date: 
Tue, 4 Jan 2000 08:56:23 GMT
Viewed: 
1193 times
  
I am fortunate enough to own copies of Lego Idea books 200, 226, 250, 260,
and 697.  Even after 20+ years of building with Lego, I still gain ideas and
general building tips from the older books as I look through them.  For the
past few weeks I have been doing some serious building.  I started with two
large Castles (one Gray with wall segments and one Yellow without any).
They have been demolished in favor of building a large town/city.  So far I
have assembled over 120 vehicles for my upcoming city.

With my huge stash of Lego from over 700 sets and thousands of additional
pieces from other sources I have the ability to build whatever I can think
up.  I like to think that I challenge myself but I know that I do not
challenge myself enough.

This is where official Lego Idea Books come in.  They provide fresh ideas of
things that can be created with currently-available and readily-available
pieces.  However, I need new ideas books to give me more ideas.

I would like to propose that TLC produce another idea book for System (as
well as the other product categories).  The last System Idea Book, # 697, is
not what I would consider a good idea book and would appreciate one closer
to #200, #250, and $260.

Lego System has had several new themes and sub-themes emerge since the
latest idea book.  All of these could use some embellishment in new idea
books.  Wild West is one example.

In fact, rather than just one idea book, I would like to see several.  With
AFOLS, no theme or subtheme is dead--we build with them all.  An example of
this would be the interest here in Fabuland or original Space Blacktron.  We
keep our pieces forever and use them to create new things all the time.
Therefore, each theme should be represented at some point in idea books.

AFOLS do not necessarily build like children due to our age, experience, and
volume of Lego elements available to build with.  Accordingly, idea books
geared at ADULTS would be greatly appreciated.

If I were to oversee development of idea books for System I would follow
this guide:
1.  Separate idea books for children/retail market and for adult market.
2.  Child editions use only elements currently or recently available and in
quantities representative of those in current and recent sets.
3.  Child edition creations segmented by building theme with all themes
represented by at least 6 pages of ideas each.  Also ideas for mixed theme
creations.
4.  Decals/stickers provided for added details to creations.
5.  Instruction-like building steps for at least two models per theme.
6.  New Idea Books to be released minimum of one book every two years with
continued availability for minimum of five years.

7.  Adult books much more challenging than child versions.
8.  Provide references to online and printed materials for ideas.
9.  In-depth model examples with instruction-like steps for several models
per theme.
10. Separate books for various themes.  A possible breakdown might be:
    A.  Castle and Pirate (including all sub-themes).
    B.  Town (including all town sub-themes, Divers, Boats, Paradisa, etc).
    C.  Early Space (including classic, Futuron, Blacktron I and II, M-Tron,
Space Police I and II, and Unitron, etc).
    D.  Later Space (including Spyrius, Exploriens, UFO, Insectoids, Ice
Planet, RoboForce, etc).
    E.  Star Wars (all episodes).
    F.  Train (4.5 volt and 9 volt) (including ideas for buildings, other
structures, etc).
    G.  Master Builders--ideas for using System elements to build
larger-scaled, highly detailed models using hundreds or thousands of pieces.
    H.  Stickers/decals books with several pages of stickers more suited to
adult builders.

11. New adult-oriented books to be released minimum of one book per
breakdown every one year with continued availability for minimum of five
years.
12. Pieces used for models come from sets spanning the entire
theme/subtheme.


Overall this is a tall order and a huge departure from the previous efforts
of TLC in producing idea books.  However, I am sure that most of these ideas
could be implemented over time.  These ideas could also be adapted for other
building products such as Technics and Mindstorms.

Most sincerely
_______________________________________________________

    Kevin Salm
    ....The biggest fan of the Gray Lego brick....
_______________________________________________________



1 Message in This Thread:

Entire Thread on One Page:
Nested:  All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:  All | Brief | Compact
    

Custom Search

©2005 LUGNET. All rights reserved. - hosted by steinbruch.info GbR