LEGO sells over 400 million tires each year, making LEGO the world’s largest tire manufacturer. There are also over 400 billion LEGO bricks in the world. Stacked together, they are 2,386,065 miles tall, which is ten times higher than the moon. All of this means the distribution of LEGO is on such an epic scale that sometimes it needs a helping hand. And that’s how this project was realised.
Getting new toy lines in front of retail procurement was a lengthy and costly process. For every new prospective LEGO toy line, countless models needed assembly and gluing before being taken by all sales teams, with backups needed in case the glue failed. Decisions on amends and later which toys would be sold in stores were then ironed out in discussions between the LEGO sales teams and buyers in retail, before changes were worked through in design and production on kits and packaging could begin.
Partnering with the animation studio we devised a LEGO network secured CD-Rom comprising of character animation, 360° rotations, toy function animation and packaging. Costly time on real-world production was eradicated and instead of multiple, fragile LEGO models every sales team had copies of the CD-Rom to take wherever they needed to travel in the world.
Daniel Kruse – 3D Artist & Lead Animator, LEGO | CEO & Supervising Animator, SirLancelot Animation Studio
