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First off, I apologize for bringing this issue up again, but a promise is a
promise. I said I would deliver more background info on the color change, and
here it is. In an effort to reduce the almost certain flood of responses to this
post, please understand that I am only posting the story, and won’t be debating
the color change merits. My goal here is to simple share the real story of how
the color change to be. Sorry for taking so long to get this out to you. In an
effort to be 100% accurate, I wanted to fact check like mad before posting. I
know that some people won’t believe this is the “real” story, but if you have a
stack of Bibles, I’m ready to swear on them.
Now, on with the story! First a little background.
The Design Lab is an internal group at the LEGO Company who is responsible for
overseeing the “system” aspects of everything the LEGO Company does. They’re the
ones that maintain the element library, element history, “own” the element
design process (working with others in the company), own and guide the growth of
the element library (ensuring the element selection doesn’t get out of control
like the late 90s), own the color palette, and many other tasks. Basically, they
work to ensure that the system works long term, and is the most robust, consumer
(kids and adults) friendly it can possibly be.
Around the beginning of 2000, we found ourselves with a color palette that was
growing far too quickly, and far too organically. There wasn’t enough vision put
into how we were expanding and adding new colors. The decision was made to apply
the same type of thinking we now use in approaching the long term element design
process to the color palette. The desired outcome was to create a color palette
that would work effectively for years to come, and that could scale easily and
correctly. We didn’t want to end up with the same out-of-control color situation
as we did with elements in the late 90s – that was a hard lesson to learn, but
we learned it well.
This initiative led to a revised color palette. This new color palette included
some deletions of low-use colors, additions of new colors, and some tweaks to
the existing colors. The goal in all these changes was completely and totally
focused on creating the absolute best set of LEGO colors possible.
There has been a great deal of assumptions posted about the reasons we made the
changes. Everything from trying to copy MEGABloks, to trying to save money on
recycling parts. I know it seems hard to believe (unless you really think about
the long-term history and attitude of this company), but it really is as simple
as trying to create a sustainable and consistent color palette for the future.
As one part of the process of defining this new, long-term color palette, we
tested the new color palette with children in the US and Germany. I won’t get
into the details of how we actually tested, as I don’t have those details. But
suffice to say, the tests came back overwhelmingly positive.
A planned roll-out plan of these new colors was planned and implemented for all
products produced starting January 2004. The thinking was that it was much
better to simply make a quick switch to the new colors, assuming (correctly,
from what little we’ve heard from non-AFOL sources; incorrectly from what we’ve
heard from the AFOLs) that the change would go fairly unnoticed. Changes are
made regularly to the bricks, to make them better in some way. Improved
clutching power, easier part separation, and many other things I don’t begin to
claim to understand are regularly tweaked to help improve the elements. With the
LEGO Company’s desire to keep their decades-long reputation for quality, we’re
constantly working to improve things that almost all the time, consumers won’t
even notice. I know a statement like this will open a can of worms. The point
I’m making is just that we are constantly improving little small things trying
to make the overall system even better.
Of course, one thing that Design Lab was unaware of at the time of
implementation was the incredible impact on the AFOLs. It’s hard to remember,
but when this “color palette cleanup” process was first initiated, LEGO Direct
was one person – Brad Justus. The LEGO Community Development team was more than
3 years away from being formed. My role was both the Community Liaison (30%) and
Web Producer (90%) – an amount that adds up to more than 100%!
Unfortunately, I simply wasn’t able to carry the AFOL message to the Design Lab
in time. For that I apologize. I know I’ve let you down, and because of it, a
good number of people no longer trust me and/or the company.
Right or wrong, agree or disagree (yes, I know that you all believe it was the
wrong decision and disagree with it), please understand that we fully
acknowledge and apologize for our poor implementation. I know, I know – many of
you believe that the change should never have been made.
Because I’ve been working closely with Design Lab (together with my LCD Team
colleagues) to help carry your message of frustration and concern, they now
understand your concerns probably better than any group in the company. Again, I
apologize for having not done a better job, earlier, in getting the AFOLs
introduced to this group.
Many, especially those in the 1000steine community, have voiced their concerns
with my/our efforts to help find a bridge between old and new. Some feel, as was
posted on LUGNET, that efforts like the colors bags are “tranquilizers”. That
was not at all the intention. Since we still believe in the changes (not the
implementation, mind you), and the costs would simply be incredible prohibitive
at this point (we lost a bit of money last year...), we’ve tried to do our best
to help deliver to you as much as we can to help this transition. Is that trying
to “keep you quiet”? Not to me… to me, it’s trying to respond to your needs.
Those things include:
- Admitting that we made a mistake in our implementation
- Defining in writing, what colors have been locked i.e. defined as “universal”, thus being “untouchable” (will have a full list once it’s ready in a few weeks)
- Agreeing to consult core consumers (AFOLs and child enthusiasts – Club kids) when making future core changes.
- Working on solutions to provide either old bricks or new bricks to help ease the transition.
I don’t begin to think that we’ll never make another mistake again. After all,
the company is made up of humans, and humans make mistakes. What I do hope you
know, or agree is that we will do a better job of trying to ensure this type of
situation doesn’t happen again.
I hope this helps clear things up.
Jake
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Jake McKee
Community Liaison
LEGO Community Development
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