'Behind The Helm' Episode #12 - Jamie Berard (Part 1)

[Captain Zuloo]

Thanks to Izzy for her awesome work, here is Part 1 of Jamie's iinterview in text format!

Hello. Welcome to this episode of Behind the Helm, a very different sort of interview today, not a Pirate fan, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I’m Connor Hicks otherwise know as Captain Zuloo on Eurobricks and Classic-Pirates.com. Unfortunately Izzy was unable to join us today so it is just me and our special guest Lego Set Designer, Jamie Berard. Responsible for sets including Café Corner and the Emerald Night, Jamie is a very talented builder who managed to find himself in the job that most of us only dream of. So how did he get there? Let’s find out.

Welcome to the show Jamie.

Ah thank you, I’m happy to be here.

That’s good of you; it’d be a shame if you weren’t. [both laugh]

So to get the ball rolling, what go you into the LEGO hobby before you started working for The Lego Group?

It’s a good question and I can’t be 100% sure because I was quite young. I think I was about maybe four or five, and I think it was either my parents or a friend of my parents. Either way I got my first LEGO set and when my parents saw my reaction to it they completely went crazy because there was no other toys that I really connected with like that. It’s one of those toys that I played with as a child. Never outgrew as a teenager, actually still build with in college. Never actually had ‘Dark Ages’ and then was finally spotted at a fan event in Washington DC by a representative of the Lego Group, he liked what he saw and offered me a job. So, it’s really an amazing this the way it worked out.

Hmm, well there goes a later question, [both laugh] that’s fine. So, do you remember what that first set you got was?

I’m pretty sure it was a fire engine, but again here is where it gets a little bit confusing because my memories… it was either myself or my brother that got it, and I was absolutely captivated by the idea that you could get a fire engine, but then take it apart and make it into anything. That was completely new to me and exciting.

So is your favourite official LEGO theme that has been out in the past or is out now?

I think I’m founded in town. That’s where most of my childhood sets come from. As I got older I actually bought Pirates, but the original Pirates from the late 80’s to mid 90’s. Those were just amazing to me, I got some of the original shooting-cannons before they took them off the US market [laughs] and then gave us the ones that don’t shoot. So those were cool, and it was neat to see the expressions on the minifigures and all of that stuff. Then I got into Star Wars, I’d say the progression went, Town, Pirates, Star Wars, Technic. Now if I’m going to buy something I tend to go Star Wars or Technic. I think the city stuff is amazing but I think I was outgrown some of the larger pieces, so they don’t offer as much to me for re-build opportunities.

Yeah, you will fond a lot of AFOL’s will agree with that statement, myself included. I think that it the only problem with LEGO now a day is the pieces are just too big and they are getting bigger.

Yeah, but I think the portfolio and range of products has actually grown. So that way, we can still have themes like City that younger children can build with, then there is lines like Creator and even Star Wars I would say has more pieces than City. There are enough products, and now we have the exclusives just for adult. You can still get those sets that are brick-rich while still letting the kids come into the hobby and feel comfortable and confident with what they build because the pieces are more manageable for them. So I think we are lucky that we have our own sets as well.

Yeah, for sure. What part of the World do you reside in at the moment?

I’m living in Billund, Denmark, which is as far away from everything as you can possibly get.

Except The Lego Group, just throwing that out there for anyone who doesn’t know.

Yeah, it’s quite nice. We are surrounded by a lot of farmland and cows. But it is the Mecca for Lego so everybody I think, should make at least one in their lifetime out this way, even though I describe it as the middle of no-where, once you get here if you are a LEGO fan, it really is a special place.

Yeah righto then, the ‘City of Lego’. So you just got you job for LEGO job by being at a fan event and being scouted then did you?

I don’t want to oversimplify it but I was fortunate to find other Lego fans, as I got older in the Boston area. We got together and tried to find out more about LEGO and Connecticut had the North American headquarters for Lego, we were about 1 and ½ hours away from the US hub of Lego. So we tried to meet with then, and we got known and we got offered to work for the company to volunteer for things. When they were launching the predecessor of Creator, I think they were called the Designer Sets, and the ‘What Would You Make’ tour, we offered to help them out with that. We volunteered on opportunities where they didn’t have the resources to build something, we would help out. We did a 3 million brick Lego display, we did a project for a science museum, and we worked over several years on it. Opportunities like that brought me closer to the company and I had the chance to work with Master Model Builders in a volunteer capacity and showed them what I could do. So I started making a little bit of a name for myself. Having those contacts helped prepare me for Brickfest 2005, I already knew several of the Lego people in attendance and they told me that people from Lego in Billund were coming, I got to meet the CEO, the Owner and some of the top executives, one of the executives that had heard about me, saw what I was making and he actually got to talk with me for a whole weekend. It was only after he spoke with me that he said, “This could work out, he could actually work for us.” It was very casual at that point, he offered my a three month trial Internship but it could go longer, and it did, I have been here for almost four years.

An internship building Lego, it can’t get any better than that.

I know! It’s amazing. [laughs]

What are some of the sets that you have designed?

My first one was Fast Flyers, http://shop.lego.com/Product/?p=4953 for Lego Creator, the Jet with the wings that fold in. My second set was Café Corner. I started on Café Corner when I was doing my internship; I finished it about a month after I got hired. Then there was… after you’ve been here a while things start to blur. [laughs] I’ve worked on at least all the modular buildings. I was very fortunate to be able to work with Eric on Market Street. I’ve worked also in the Cool Convertible and the new Winter Toy Shop that just came out and then of course the Emerald Night. I worked on Town Plan with two other designers. Most of the sets we make are collaborations, so there re other sets I can claim B-Models for. I’ve done some concept work on the creatures in Aqua Raiders, and quite often I’ll be lent out to other projects but won’t be designing the full model.

Did you design the Emerald Night on your own or was that also a collaboration?

It initially started out as a collaboration, we invited in a group of Lego fans, who we considered to be the top train builders from around the world, they came in for a full week and helped us to find many of the things that ended up being on the Emerald Night, I think the references we were using we established at that point, I learned many valuable things about what the keys elements are that make a train amazing. You know, what are the colours, what bricks are being used. That is where the conversation about the large train wheels really came about. In the workshop we tried to figure out if we could build large train wheels or did we need to mould something? After the workshop it was our opinion that we had to mould the wheel for the level of realism that we wanted to accomplish. Then we also learned about the tan train windows. [laughs] We had conversations about stickers versus printing, someone like me, this was actually the first train I had built, I had purchased a few in the past but I wanted to find myself as a train fan, so I really had to catch up quickly and it was a lot of very good research to find out what exactly gets the train fans excited. So it was collaboration in that sense and after the workshop we decided we had to actually design it, it became impractical to still invite everybody back to contribute so it came into our design department where it went through the normal stages. Because it was a Lego Direct Exclusive, which generally means it will be one person or a small team’s responsibility as opposed to our normal product line. If I work on a Creator car there is a team of 5 or 6 designers, quite often we will swap the model around so everybody gets a chance to build with it, but with a Direct Exclusive they tend to be very large models so we cannot pass it around instead one person takes ownership of it. With this one the mechanism, I worked with Technic, we have a Mechatronics department, they defined the mechanism for me and said, ‘we feel this is the most efficient, strongest way to drive the train’, and that’s where things like the extra large motor was defined, and the gearing, then they basically said ‘dress it up’. I would describe my key role as making a very realistic train on top of a frame that was handed to me. I tried the first one and I’m not too ashamed to acknowledge that mine was not very efficient. I had to accept that someone else had to help out with that, basically the styling I can take credit for, the shell on top of the electronics and the components and the gearing. The rest of the train, the tender and the wagons I also did.

You mention the Emerald Night wasn’t quite the normal design process, what would you say is the normal design process?

The normal design process takes from a year to maybe three years sometimes four years, but standard for any particular model, it usually starts with a design brief, where as in a tradition product line that goes to toy stores, those briefs usually come from the marketing department or requests from consumers like Toys‘R’Us, or Target or somebody who has a particular request. Then they will define, for example: When I did the fast Flyers aeroplane they said we want a $20 dollar modern aeroplane that has a function… and can be built by a 7 year old. So, that’s a pretty basic brief, then its open to us to explore what options there are. If it is something like a Lego Direct or Exclusive model, that brief actually comes directly from the fans. The feedback that we get, we do have Ambassadors that we are very grateful for, they give us wonderful input. We’ll quite often do polls, we attend events, and I try to attend at least three fan events from around the world. I went to Brickworld two years ago in Chicago, last year I went to the NMRA train show in the US, and then I go to about three European events. Talking to the fans you get a good sense of what they want and working for the Lego directs exclusives, I currently working as the Design lead so I am working to find what that brief is, quite often I’ll have another designer build the model now. But I formulate those briefs in conjunction with the rest of the team that I work with. We get input from the Shop-at-Home department, they tell us what has sold well and maybe it would be a good year to launch a train or something, we also sometimes get requests from upper management, because someone like Jørgen Vig is constantly in contact with the fans. We have had instances where something has come from the top because someone had contacted him, or he has seen or experienced something. Yeah so we get the brief, [laughs] sorry, that was a bit of a long way to say ‘brief’. Then we spend the next 3 to 6 months actually designing the product and we will take different references, we will make different executions of it, we will get lots of feedback from our teams, and then sometimes as I said, with the Creator products, we will hand them off and let another designer build a version. One version is built by one guy, and then another and another and in the end you have one person who takes ownership and tries to take the best ideas from all of them and make a final product. Then we do lots of kids testing, we bring them in to make sure the can handle it, that they like it, that it is exciting, find out where things fall off, or we will use some ‘in house’ Lego fans we will use for the test. [laughs] Then we go through a model review process where the model is critiqued by several of the most experienced people in the company, we’ll have traditionally senior designers, technicians, model part designers, building instruction representatives, and we all sit down and build a model, as the set designer you put down a brick and they put down a brick, and they are saying ‘perhaps this part is difficult to build, maybe you could change this colour to make it easier to see’. ‘Why do you have two of these pieces here when it could be replaced by one of these pieces that you already have on the volume?’ lots of conversations about things like that. Then we bake it in an oven, we don’t fully turn up the heat, and we just warm it up enough to represent a year in the sun. Say somebody puts a model on his or her windowsill and it is constantly in contact with the sun; say they are in a warm climate like South America or Australia even [laughs] then we want to make sure that over a course of a year that the model is still stable, and we can very quickly see which pieces will fall off, because as the plastic is heated the ‘clutch power’ is reduced and certain elements have a tendency to fall off if they are not secured properly. So we do that loop, make any changes that are necessary and get it approved. There is still another whole process after that to do packaging, building instructions, and marketing campaigns, yeah and lots of stuff after that. But as for the design process it tends to end in the early part of the model.

Yeah, okay that was interesting. And I’ll have you know that Australia isn’t that hot. In Canberra, the capital of Australia we had a low of 3 degrees Celsius today.

Really??? Remember I come from America so all of our knowledge of Australia is from movies. It always looks warm and exotic and wonderful.

Exotic and wonderful yeah! So what is your workspace that you build models in look like? At work and a home.

I think its pretty fun; we have an open environment at work. We are in a building that is attached to where the original Lego factory used to be, in fact our building is where they used to package the sets, there were all these poor women who had to sit there putting pieces in boxes by hand. So it’s kind of neat to have that tradition. It’s a nice bi open space, we have the ground floor where I’m based and upstairs there are other designers. It’s a fairly playful environment where we have a balcony that wraps around above where I work, so quite often you’ll have someone launching a nerf ball at the back of your head. People can walk around pretty freely; we don’t have walls or cubicles. The only thing that really divides us is our element shelves. Which is where we have our standard assortment of Lego bricks. We group ourselves in teams, we probably have about 5 or 6 designers for each particular team, and we also have our building instructions, that we work very closely with, they tend to sit with us whenever possible. Because it is usually a conversation that starts at the beginning of the model trying to think how of how this can be built, instead of handed them at model at the and saying ‘Deal with it!’ [laughs] We try to make it more co-operative. It’s a very playful environment. There are lots and lots and lots of Lego models all around, so there is amazing inspiration. On my desk I always have dozens of curiosities, you know of two bricks are laying next to each other on my desk, if I happen to notice that they connect in an interesting way and I don’t know what I’ll do with it, I’ll just put it off to the corner of my desk, and over time you will see some curious window construction, and a new lamp post and some creature face I have half started. Then around me are shelves and shelves of the misfit toys that never made it, you know for any one particular model we might have up to ten versions of it, we might have a jet but we started out saying can we build and aeroplane with propeller blades, maybe a bi-plane, maybe a stealth super-sonic jet, in the end you decide on one of them and all the others just get put on the shelf to hopefully live another day. But that is quite inspirational; I think it kind of represents my apartment as well because I have all these Lego models everywhere. [laughs] It’s my Ikea; it’s my decorating, so I have lots of little things that spark ideas for me. Maybe I might be building something and half way through put it off to the side for another time, and I have my own sorting shelves which aren’t as good as the ones a work, but in another way I sometimes have bricks that I don’t have a work, that offer me knew ways of building that I couldn’t use in my day-to-day work. It all kind of blends together, work and after work fun.

Righto, so, when you designed the Emerald Night, did you have any other colours in mind? You mention that you often have several models before you come up with the final product, did you have any other colours for the Emerald Night?

I think the engine was always dark green and we really didn’t change that. It was a specific request from the fans and then tan train windows; those were the two colours that were requested again and again. So we decided dark green, okay we can do that, then the tan train windows, the wagon was actually originally dark blue with tan windows, because dark blue was another request from fans. But the brown, we felt actually that although it’s not as rare as colour it makes it look a little more authentic it blends in with a lot of trains around the world, specifically in the UK market, we based the train more around that.

Is there any particular locomotive that it is based on?

We don’t like to particularly copy; instead we take cues from several. So I think the Emerald Night actually represents 3 trains we were using as a references, in the UK. Without taking any specific one, because maybe many of then had red buffers, and then detailing over the wheels and things like that. In the end we try to make it our own, unless we are going to make a licensed product and then we make it as authentic as possible. But yeah, I think it is based on several train in the UK.

Yeah okay, there was a rumour going around that the dining car that goes with it was based on a Pullman dining car, is that true?

Ah, yeah, it is based on several again, but Pullman is definitely an icon in the wagon department, so it defiantly has several cues from that. But when you build a Lego wagon we are at a real disadvantage because in reality they are much longer and they have so many extra details that are wonderful but because of the actual radius of our curves, we just by default can’t make it too long, without it interfering with switches and sidetrack things. Again it is kind of inspired by, [laughs] rather than a replica.

Yeah, also do you think we will be seeing any more coaches for this fantastic set in the future?

Unfortunately we won’t be releasing any more wagons for the Emerald Night but that’s not to say there future trains won’t have wagons, but traditionally they haven’t done as well. Many fans say that they buy 5 or 6 wagons for every train, but it hasn’t shown that way in our sales numbers. So it has to be a very specific, very appealing wagon to be able to be on its own. Otherwise we have to think of a more creative way to offer it. So I wouldn’t say there is no potential of wagons in the future but at this time we would have to use one of our… basically every year there will be a specific number of sets and each set is given an article number, for example in the Lego Exclusive last year we launched 6 or 7 items. So you could say, ‘Okay you can have the wagon or Medieval Market, or the wagon or the Rebel Blockade Runner’, so when you only have a limited number of sets and you look at the potential and decided will people as a whole buy more and be more excited about something like the Medieval Market or a train and then another train wagon. It just takes away the potential to launch another item like the new Pirate Ship that is coming out; you could argue why couldn’t that be a new train wagon? In then end we can always make those decisions, we have an article number but when you have so few, it’s hard to justify doing a wagon when traditionally the sales of wagons have not been so strong.

[Perterz]

Thanks to Izzy for her awesome work, here is Part 1 of Jamie's iinterview in text format!

Thank you very much!

[*thomas*]

@ CZ

Thanks for typing it out :)

[Izzy]

Well I actually typed it out, but thanks to Captain Zuloo for posting it, and for actually doing the interview. I really enjoyed listening to it (about 15 times )

[*thomas*]

Well I actually typed it out, but thanks to Captain Zuloo for posting it, and for actually doing the interview. I really enjoyed listening to it (about 15 times )

Ow, my bad, thanks !

BTW, I still don't understand quite well why they won't release an extra wagon for the EN... I presume they already knew they were not going to do this when they launched the EN. (?) So, what they should have done (IMHO) is adding an extra wagon to the set (so EN + 2 cars).

Cheers

[Captain Zuloo]

It might interest you to know that in the discussion I had with Jamie after the interview, he asked if I would have paid extra for a second car. When I assured him I would have, he said TLG would probably have added another car if they had the chance to re-release the set, but it was a decision based on price and at the time they decided it would sell better with 1 car and a lower price tag.

[Rick]

I still don't quite understand why it would make a difference for TLG to release (1) a train with two wagons or (2) a train with one wagon and a train car set. Sure it means you'll have two exclusives out instead of one, but I don't see where the big difference is in terms of costs and I'd only see additional benefits, i.e. most AFOLs buying the train set plus a number of extra train cars.

[Captain Zuloo]

Keep in mind what Jamie said about article numbers though.

[Rick]

Sure, implicitly I'm saying: why does TLG limit the number of S@H exclusives if they could get more sales with roughly the same cost by splitting certain sets (see the reasoning in my earlier pos; same goes for offering 'middle floors' for the Modular Buildings, I guess).

However, I can imagine that they give each line a limit to the number of sets to avoid discussions, like "... but if we split this set into two..." with people responsible for the various lines.

[peterab]

I'd guess that the number of exclusive sets is fixed up front to limit how many are in the market at once. TLG must have a reasonable estimate of the ammount of money AFOLs spend per year, so it seems reasonable not to have too many sets aimed at them at a time.

[Bill Ward's Brickpile]

I can't find the "behind the helm" podcast in the iTunes directory. How can I subscribe to this podcast? Is there an RSS feed for it?

[Captain Zuloo]

I can't find the "behind the helm" podcast in the iTunes directory. How can I subscribe to this podcast? Is there an RSS feed for it?

At the moment, no. There isn't currently an RSS feed, but it is on my to-do list!

[DaCheese]

Regarding the lack of extra coaches for the EN; while I realise that the Star Wars range is tremendously popular, I can't help but feel that a modular coach kit would be preferable to another horribly expensive AFOL SW kit. How many people actually have the Death Star or Millenium Falcon Collectors' models? I know I'd rather spend the same money on four to seven coaches. When you compare the length of the loco to the coach in the set anything less than three is going to look silly, and if an AFOL is going to buy a £160 steam loco so fantastically detailed that it doesn't even look like Lego from a few metres away, they'll surely stump up for coaches?

I suppose it once again comes down to Lego predicting low sales from a range that nobody knows about because they won't advertise it. If you're listening at Billund, at least put all the parts in correct colours (including windows) I'd need to build more on LDD DesignByMe please!

[Captain Zuloo]

I suppose it once again comes down to Lego predicting low sales from a range that nobody knows about because they won't advertise it. If you're listening at Billund, at least put all the parts in correct colours (including windows) I'd need to build more on LDD DesignByMe please!

I'm sure Jamie will get around to reading your reply, as it seems that he visits much more than you would think, but unfortunately, I don't think the right people will see your post. But Jamie, even though you told me plainly that there will not be any more coaches, PLEASE get everyone at PMD to rethink it!

[Duq]

It might interest you to know that in the discussion I had with Jamie after the interview, he asked if I would have paid extra for a second car. When I assured him I would have, he said TLG would probably have added another car if they had the chance to re-release the set, but it was a decision based on price and at the time they decided it would sell better with 1 car and a lower price tag.

Thing is, different people have different preferences. Personally I'd rather spend $140 on two loco's than a loco with two cars, other people wouldn't. By releasing two sets, say the engine at $70 and the carriage at $35 I think they would have sold more of each...

[peterab]

I suppose it once again comes down to Lego predicting low sales from a range that nobody knows about because they won't advertise it. If you're listening at Billund, at least put all the parts in correct colours (including windows) I'd need to build more on LDD DesignByMe please!

I don't know how fair this is. If Lego tells us that single wagons don't sell well we have to believe that. I can even form a reasonable argument why this might be so for the children focused sets. Given the choice between an engine and a wagon, most kids will want the engine first, since it has more play value on its own. Some of those kids may well get the wagon later but not all, hence the engine will sell better.

Consider the Super Chief and its cars, which I'd argue were aimed at adults as well as kids. They seem to have followed that pattern, as the wagons were available at heavy discounts toward the end, which I guess was to clear the remaining stock that didn't sell.

It appears to me that kids buying patterns dominate even for sets aimed at AFOLs.

I'd love to see the rarer parts for the wagon on pick a brick though, particlarly the tan windows, and the grey roof curves.

[dhaas06]

Thing is, different people have different preferences. Personally I'd rather spend $140 on two loco's than a loco with two cars, other people wouldn't. By releasing two sets, say the engine at $70 and the carriage at $35 I think they would have sold more of each...

I would make the same argument.

Of course it isn't practical these days for TLG to release 4 different carriage sets, but I don't see why it is so much to ask for one modular one that can be built in different ways. I can guess why past sales of carriages have been relatively poor. With the My Own Train line, there were two main problems: 1) These cars were much more unrealistic and simplistic than today's models, so adults were less inclined to collect them; 2) The assortment was too wide for most kids to buy them all, so each set just sold a portion of the total for the admittedly smaller market of young train fans (compared to dominant themes like Star Wars).

Both of these issues could be addressed with an Emerald Night carriage set that has enough extra pieces to make it several different types of cars. It would be realistic enough for adults to collect (and complete the perfect image that the Emerald Night demands~ a full, elegant train). Also, with only one carriage set instead of four, production would be streamlined, and it would essentially have the sales numbers of multiple carriage sets combined. This is a similar approach to the one used with the two Santa Fe carriage sets, but I think it can be improved over the Santa Fe case. This time there could be just one set instead of two, with even more flexibility and better promotion of the versatility and creativity inherent in designing so many different things from one set, which is what Lego is all about. It could be the ultimate parts-pack for all types of coaches, with printed instructions for at least three and inspiration for more, and a price point of $35-$50 depending on the number of elements. Basically, apply the Creator approach to trains.

I know one thing for sure: I'd be in for more than five right from the start.

[DaCheese]

A modular kit is exactly what I had in mind. Inside the box would be parts and instructions that would allow you to build a brake coach, luggage/full brake coach, sleeping car, kitchen car or another dining car. They aren't to my taste but I'm sure some people would appreciate an observation car too (large windows in one end, not a huge glass section on top).

The roof and chassis construction could be the same for all coaches except the observation car. The differences would lie in the positioning of doors, windows and interior details. The chassis and roof could be built first with instructions for the bit in between following after, which would reduce the length of the instructions a bit.

[dhaas06]

A modular kit is exactly what I had in mind. Inside the box would be parts and instructions that would allow you to build a brake coach, luggage/full brake coach, sleeping car, kitchen car or another dining car. They aren't to my taste but I'm sure some people would appreciate an observation car too (large windows in one end, not a huge glass section on top).

The roof and chassis construction could be the same for all coaches except the observation car. The differences would lie in the positioning of doors, windows and interior details. The chassis and roof could be built first with instructions for the bit in between following after, which would reduce the length of the instructions a bit.

Exactly, that perfectly illustrates the way I see it being successfully carried out. It seems so easy...