emilstorm Posted February 20, 2015 Posted February 20, 2015 Hello Eurobrickers, Does anybody know of a place online where you can find out who designed each set. I recently bought about 20 pounds of bricks, and it turned out the previous owner was a set designer in the early 90's. So now I am pretty curious about which sets he designed. Quote
hojojicek Posted February 20, 2015 Posted February 20, 2015 I never heard of such page and I highly doubt that normal (not exclusive) sets are (were) done by one designer only, as it is rather team work ... However you can find information about designer with some recent exclusives , UCS, etc... Quote
Meiko Posted February 20, 2015 Posted February 20, 2015 Brickipedia is in the process of adding that factoid to articles about sets and compiling a list on articles about set designers. What we have so far is here. Still a long way to go, but it's a start. hojojicek is right in what he said though: many sets are a group effort to design, and thus have multiple designers. Quote
emilstorm Posted February 20, 2015 Author Posted February 20, 2015 Thanks for the replies, I didn't have my hopes up too high, especially since I was curious about such old sets. But he was definetly working on some space stuff. A lot of Mtron and Blacktron stuff in the pile. Quote
hojojicek Posted February 20, 2015 Posted February 20, 2015 The question is if one designer is working for one specific theme only? Do they have any specialisation? If there can be guy like Samuel Johnson who works for both city and Ninjago (quite oposite themes in my opinion - and as we can see he is doing both vehicles and playsets), I highly doubt about it. So is there like only one really big team of designers? Or do they form team for one wave of one theme only and then do they form new teams? Quote
emilstorm Posted February 20, 2015 Author Posted February 20, 2015 Interesting question. I always thought they specialized in one or a couple of themes. In earlier days at least, and at least to me, there seemed to be a distinct difference in building techniques in different themes. But there might be someone in the Embassy forum that would know for sure. I think it would be interesting for some of us nerds to know who designed all these sets :) Quote
Meiko Posted February 20, 2015 Posted February 20, 2015 The question is if one designer is working for one specific theme only? Do they have any specialisation? If there can be guy like Samuel Johnson who works for both city and Ninjago (quite oposite themes in my opinion - and as we can see he is doing both vehicles and playsets), I highly doubt about it. So is there like only one really big team of designers? Or do they form team for one wave of one theme only and then do they form new teams? It's different with different designers. It all depends what they're skilled at. Sam is a senior designer so he's spent time working in different areas over the various years he's been at LEGO. Some designers only work in specific categories (such as "girls themes", Technic, etc), and some work in various areas like Sam Johnson. Another example is Jamie Berard, who did mostly Creator sets (sets that use basic parts and include multiple possible models in one set), but also does a lot of complex large-scale sets like the Tower Bridge. But for play themes especially, a lot of designers work in groups to design sets. More creative minds behind a single task can sometimes achieve better results. Quote
L@go Posted February 20, 2015 Posted February 20, 2015 In the case of a lot of the earlier sets, chances are you'll never be able to find out. Once the people that designed the sets leave the company because of retirement or other reasons, the knowledge of who designed the specific sets seem to be lost, in many cases. It just doesn't matter (or didn't, anyway) to the company who designed the sets - it was never interesting until the AFOL community started asking questions about it. I happen to have met, several times, the designer of the original, legendary Yellow Castle - who also worked on loads of the Classic Town sets I adored and cherished in my childhood - and he still can't understand why people would think it's nice to meet him and talk to him about 'work' (that's all it was to him) he did all those years ago. Friends of mine who work within the company, as designers, have also tried to track down who designed the fabulous Statue of Liberty that is sitting proudly on its pedestal in my livingroom. But nobody within the company seem to know anymore - there's just no record of it anywhere. It's hard to believe, I know, but that's the way it is... Quote
LEGO Historian Posted February 21, 2015 Posted February 21, 2015 (edited) L@go, what you just mentioned about not knowing who designed the Statue of Liberty, a relatively recent set, does not surprise me at all. The record keeping and archiving of information at TLG is... and I really don't wish to insult them... but it is appalling!! In producing my 2800 Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide (a computer desktop guide only now)... I have worked with the very nice folks at the TLG Archives and Collections now for 8 years. And throughout all those years of all the generous facts that they have given me from their archival records... I've had to discard about 1/4 of the information, because I have found evidence to the contrary. Record keeping, especially in the early years has been very sparse. And in many case it's just a matter of the information they have not being interpretated correctly. In my 8 years of research, I have found many sets and even parts that they have no information on. Even the LEGO Vault does not have every set they ever produced, they are missing quite a lot of sets from the early years, and have had to buy many sets on the secondary market. And sadly so many of the employees of the earlier (or even more recent) years have left the company, are retired or have passed away and the information is lost or obscured. I have had a lot of conversation (mainly Email correspondence) with folks such as folks at USA Samsonite, Canada Samsonite, UK British LEGO, or people who worked in Billund. I am compiling a series of anecdotes or stories about LEGO milestones or histories, before they are lost forever. One of the new chapters in my LEGO collectors guide are individual stories that could otherwise be lost forever... at least the "why" and "how" of some LEGO reasoning of why things were done. Here's some of my anecdotes from people I've been able to talk to, as well as my own investigations... http://www.youblishe...s-Barber-Shops/ http://www.youblishe...LY-LEGO-MODELS/ http://www.youblishe...nal-LEGO-Items/ http://www.youblishe...d-Actual-Model/ http://www.youblishe...st-LEGO-Wheels/ There will be about 40 different anecdotal stories in this chapter, one of 80 chapters in my voluminous collectors guide. Edited February 21, 2015 by LEGO Historian Quote
Ronan Posted March 11, 2015 Posted March 11, 2015 Do you know who was the studios Theme designer? Quote
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