If you are browsing this site, I’m sure that you have known what LEGO is. LEGO is one of the best building and construction toys and most preferred construction toys in the world.

LEGO toys are originated in Billund, Denmark in the year 1932. By than, the LEGO pieces were designed out of a €˜wooden building blocks by a carpenter called, Ole Christiansen.

He earned his living by constructing houses and furniture for farmers in the region, with the help of a small staff of apprentices. His workshop burned down in 1924 when a fire, lit by two of his young sons, ignited some wood shavings. Undaunted, Ole Kirk took the disaster as an opportunity to construct a larger workshop, and worked towards expanding his business even further; however, the Great Depression would soon have an impact on his livelihood. In finding ways to minimize production costs, Ole Kirk began producing miniature versions of his products as design aids. It was these miniature stepladders and ironing boards that inspired him to begin producing toys.

In 1932, Ole Kirk’s shop started making wooden pull toys, piggy banks, cars and trucks. He enjoyed a modest amount of success, but families were poor and often unable to afford such toys. Farmers in the area sometimes traded food in exchange for his toys; Ole Kirk found he had to continue producing practical furniture in addition to toys in order to stay in business. In the mid-1930s, the yo-yo toy fad gave him a brief period of activity, until it suddenly collapsed. Once again, Ole Kirk turned disadvantage to his favor, turning the disused yo-yo parts into wheels for a toy truck. His son Godtfred began working for him, taking an active role in the company.

The word lego is an abbreviation for two Danish words leg and godt meaning play well.

It was in 1934 that the company name Lego was coined. Ole Kirk held a contest amongst his staff to see who could come up with the best name for the company, offering a bottle of homemade wine as a prize. Christiansen was considering two names himself, “Legio” (with the implication of a “Legion of toys”) and “Lego”, a self-made contraction from the Danish phrase leg godt, meaning “play well.” Later the Lego Group discovered that “Lego” can be loosely interpreted as “I put together” or “I assemble” in Latin.

When plastic came into widespread use, Ole Kirk kept with the times and began producing plastic toys. One of the first modular toys to be produced was a truck that could be taken apart and re-assembled. In 1947, Ole Kirk and Godtfred obtained samples of interlocking plastic bricks produced by the company Kiddicraft. These “Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks” were designed and patented by Mr. Hilary Harry Fisher Page, a British citizen In 1949 the Lego Group began producing similar bricks, calling them “Automatic Binding Bricks.” Lego bricks, manufactured from cellulose acetate, were developed in the spirit of traditional wooden blocks that could be stacked upon one another; however, these plastic bricks could be “locked” together. They had several round “studs” on top, and a hollow rectangular bottom. They would stick together, but not so tightly that they could not be pulled apart. In 1953, the bricks were given a new name: Lego Mursten, or “Lego Bricks.”

At that time, most of the dealers didn’€™t trust a plastic toy, resulting in insufficient sales.Many of the Lego Group’s shipments were returned, following poor sales; it was thought that plastic toys could never replace wooden ones. In the year 1954, the business actually picked up. The €˜modern day LEGO bricks which came with an €˜interlocking stud mechanisms were finalized in 1958, and these pieces unbelievably are till date compatible with the Lego pieces of today.

Lego toy bricks add pieces have been designed to be an element of a collective system of parts where freedom of expression, creative thought and variation can join together to produce fabulous contraptions. Toys like these were an enormous improvement over the usual toys that are being produced today, which muffled individual thought with specific movements and designs. With the Lego toys, you could always and still can create whatever you want. Lego has developed from the splendidly simple and creative blocks to Axles, Cogs, joints and several electronic components that assist in the radio controlled movement.

The Lego brand is very widespread, having crossed over into every well known genre, both TV and film. SpongeBob Squarepants, Harry Potter, Star Wars and Indiana Jones are all a part of the famous Lego Toy sets that the Lego focus groups determine to target. This entire process takes an upwards of six months to get done. The cycle goes as follows: Identifying the ongoing trends of the market, carrying out the designing and development part, and then creating a model Lego toy for the purpose of testing. These days, all of the Lego toy sets are crafted on the computer with CAD, becoming a much easier task for the designers to contribute to their creative effort.

Source : Wikipedia and the web