Lego is well known for its attention to detail quality and consistency Lego bricks made back in the 1950s still perfectly match up with modern sets but with sets getting larger and more detailed as the years go on the design and creation process of Lego sets has become quite complex yet fascinating so how does a Lego set go from an original idea to a finished product well you see the entire process can take several years but here's what happens it all starts here at Lego's Innovation house in bill in Denmark in this building teams of anywhere between 4 and 12 designers work on each of LEGO's 42 unique themes the process of brainstorming ideas colors and designs can go on for months before the models are even designed inspiration for a new set or line can come from any number of places for the Lego Hidden Side theme members of the design team were literally sent to New Orleans in the United States to gather ideas in the end several sites from this trip made their way into finished products the city's Southern architecture and harbor can be seen in the themes shipwrecks and Ghost Town sets generally speaking though Lego runs projects in semesters with most sets releasing in January and the summer of each year since Lego typically works one to two years ahead the design teams are given a list with the approximate number of sets that should be designed for the coming launch as well as a desired range of price points other than that though Lego designers are given tremendous for freedom to come up with whatever they feel best captures the feel of the Lego theme now within the walls of the Lego Innovation house each team sits in their own part of the building alongside the other designers of the same Lego theme each team also has a large building table full of all the most commonly used bricks this allows them to observe what everyone else is doing give and receive feedback and generally work to ensure that all the sets have a unified feel to them most of the time a set is designed by a single person but larger sets may have multiple collaborators once a designer knows which set they'll be working on it's time to hit the drawing board most of the time the designers start with a rough sketch of what the finished product is in theory supposed to look like from here it's time to begin the initial construction the very first phase of the physical design is usually very simple in fact a boat could be represented with as little as a base plate and a few bricks this is just to get an overall sense of scale and shape for the set Lego designers have described the creative process as quote sculpting with with bricks as the overwhelming majority of the design stage is done physically with real Lego now while there is computer software with every single kind of brick available to designers this doesn't let them simulate gravity or how kids hold the model or if it's even stable and let's be honest playing with the real thing is always more fun at the Lego Innovation house these designers have access to every Lego Fan's dream a literal library with every single Lego brick the company makes this room is massive and even has handy reference charts at the end of each aisle designers go down several times a day to fill up boxes with bricks to use in their models in average workday for a designer has been described to be quote like a kid playing at home during the design phase however it's not uncommon for models to be reworked several times until they're just right in fact I made an entire video on Lego prototypes showing off just how much these designs can change over the process now when a designer is happy with the model's look and feel they'll upload it to the computer to save their work work this step is vital just in case the model breaks during this final stage designers have been known to sneak in personal references and hidden jokes for example in Lego hidden side's wrecked Shrimp Boat set with Lego designer named the ship Maria which is the first name of his wife and the ship's plate number is actually the date of their wedding anniversary now once the design is finally made into a physical set it's time to move on to testing sets need to be quote play proofed to make sure that they live up to Lego's incredibly high standards throughout the whole design process local kids are actually invited to the studio to test out the products and occasionally even offer suggestions also sets that are licensed may also need to be checked by the intellectual property owner such as Disney to ensure that the sets match their franchise or movie in addition Lego hosts an event Every Spring called design boost during this week designers are given full access to all the company's resources to pitch their own ideas and these weeks can be incredibly productive in fact the original idea for the like brickheadz line came about from one of these events now but at the end of the day Lego is a business and inflation affects their operations in fact you may be feeling the effects of inflation right now as well inflation has everyone gripping their wallets a little tighter and major stock indexes are down about 22 percent or more this year and that's why I'm excited to tell you about Masterworks a unique platform that lets you invest in contemporary art by Legends like Picasso and Banksy but for a fraction of the full price according to Citibank this art has a very low correlation to other Investments like stocks so when they dip your art Investments may not the last time inflation was this High art appreciated more than gold and real estate at an average of 33 percent per year of course any investment can fluctuate and me talking about this does not mean I'm giving Financial advice but for Masterworks it's in their best interest to get the highest return which is why from the six paintings they've already sold Masterworks has delivered an average return of 29 to people on their platform including a sale just last month for a 33 return Masterworks has done so well that there's a wait list to join their other 500 000 members but you can skip it by clicking the link in the description click the link to sign up today thanks to Masterworks for sponsoring this video now moving on to the production stage of Lego bricks and Lego sets the manufacturing can be incredibly sophisticated every single Lego brick for every single set starts in the same way as these little plastic granules made of ABS plastic every day at Legos factories trucks filled with these little pellets arrive these plastic granules only come in blue green red yellow black gray and white so any other color that you see in Lego's palette is made from a mixture of two or more at the factory giant hoses suck up the granules before dumping them into a three-story High metal Silo at the main Lego factory there are 14 of these that can hold up to 33 tons of raw plastic pellets from these the the granules are fed down the pipes into the molding machines and these molding machines heat up these granules to temperatures of nearly 450 degrees Fahrenheit resulting in a thick plastic goo this melted goo is then fed into the injection molds these are small metal containers in the shape of completely Hollow Lego bricks basically this is a similar process too if you've ever used an ice cube tray and put that into the freezer the molding machine puts up to 150 tons of pressure on the mold to guarantee that the bricks are shaped with perfect accuracy in fact the Lego molding process is so precise that out of every 1 million bricks produced only 18 are rejected this much heat and pressure provides no shortage of Danger on the factory floor and so as a result the molding process is almost entirely automated finished elements Roll Along conveyor belts into boxes and once full the machine alerts a nearby robot that it's time for a delivery Guided by the grooves on a factory floor these robots pick up full boxes of Lego bricks and place them onto another conveyor belt that takes them to the next step of the manufacturing process these things are constantly on the Move in the building Factory eight robotic trucks transport more than 600 boxes of elements every hour overall the Lego factory in billend produces more than 36 000 elements every single minute these bricks are then moved to one of four different storage areas in the factory these areas are completely autonomous and no humans are inside at all from here the bricks are removed as needed for further assembly now at this stage the bricks are technically ready to be used but there's still one crucial step left before packaging as they stand these Lego elements are just plain plastic bricks they need decorating the next stop for these bricks is the assembly Halls here details like faces control panels numbers words or anything else printed on the pieces are added in addition pieces like minifigure torsos are snapped together so that whenever you open up the set you see that the minifigure torso already has its arms and hands attached onto the body now at this point the bricks are all ready to be shipped out they just need to be sorted and packaged sets often have hundreds or even thousands of pieces so this step needs to be fast and accurate in the packaging lines these pieces are sorted by dumping them into a machine this then separates and counts them using optical sensors before placing them in a generic small box these boxes also known as cassettes roll down conveyor belts under the bins holding all the Lego bricks these bins open and close to release the correct number of pieces into each cassette now if you think that sounds like a complicated process well there's more at every step of this process the box and pieces are weighed the Central Computer that oversees every step of Lego production knows precisely how much each element weighs and uses this information to make sure that the correct number of pieces are in each set this is also what causes extra pieces to appear in Lego sets these are typically small and light pieces and Lego just prefers to give you an extra piece rather than accidentally leave a piece out lastly human employees finally fold the boxes and add any remaining pieces as well as an instruction booklet to each set click here to watch one of my favorite videos and subscribe for more Lego content
