Perhaps, in modern society there is no such person who has not heard of the Lego constructor. And, if you ask a child about this, you will certainly hear the most incredible stories about construction space stations, pirate ships, racing cars, fire trucks, police stations and more!

The Lego constructor is not just a game that develops the motor skills of the hands of the smallest and the imagination of a little older children. Lego is a whole world, having plunged into it once, there is a natural desire to return to it again and again. By the way, among the fans of this wonderful game are not only children, but also adults, quite serious people! There are even fan clubs that unite fans of the legendary designer from all over the world. In Prague, for example, even a whole Lego museum is open, with an area of ​​​​340 square meters. Presented in the museum is nothing less than two thousand expositions! And in Denmark, the city of Billund, there is a whole city that is completely built from Lego blocks - Legoland Park.

To whom do we owe for the invention of the toy of the century (and this famous designer has long been dubbed that way) and how long ago did the history of Lego begin? Let's talk about everything - in order, because it's clear that the first Lego constructor was very different from the modern one. Still: the prototype of the current designer, firstly, was wooden, and secondly, it, in fact, was not yet the Lego that exists today. In addition, Lego continues to improve to this day, creating new and more interesting games.

It all started in 1932, in the Danish town of Billund, where the local carpenter Ole Kirk Christensen opened his woodworking factory. There, the master produced stairs and ironing boards, and along the way, from the remnants of production - toys. Perhaps the last circumstance was influenced by the fact that at the time of the founding of the factory, Ole Kirk's beloved son was growing up. The factory workers were tasked with creating not just primitive wooden blanks, but toys that would develop children's imagination and Creative skills! And even though these were not some supernatural unimaginable games, but, for example, simple cubes from which it was possible to build what fantasy allowed, their popularity in the district was gaining momentum every day.

Already in 1934, the creator of the educational game thought about expanding his production. Wooden educational games began to be produced under the brand name "Lego". The name comes from the Danish words leg, which means game, and godt, which translates as pleasure. Simply put, the Lego brand produced (and still produces!) toys that are fun to play with! Surprisingly, and even to some extent symbolic, but the creators of the brand then did not even realize that in Latin the word lego means - I collect!

In 1949, a new era began in the history of Lego toys - they began to be molded from plastic. And in 1951, more than two hundred items of toys were produced under this brand, including the prototype of the modern Lego designer - cubes that could be connected to each other.

In 1958, the factory was headed by the son of the late Ole Kirk Christensen - Gottfred, and a detail was patented - the main component of the first Lego constructor - a cube that has 8 protrusions on its surface and 8 recesses on the bottom.

The legendary brand has a rich history. Perhaps, one could write a whole book about the stages of its formation and development. Of course, it would be a "novel with a sequel." The range of Lego products is expanding to this day, the Lego designer has new fans, or, more correctly, is growing up. Ole Kirk Christensen's vision to create games that spark imagination and creativity continues to this day in the new building kit collections. And the work of a carpenter from Denmark is continued by people who are as dedicated to their work as he is.

• Lego success story
• lego legacy
• Gender miscalculation...

The history of the iconic brand Lego originates in a small carpentry workshop in the Danish village of Billund in 1932. Its founder - a simple carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen - tried to make ends meet by making ironing boards, ladders, chairs ... However, His Majesty Chance decided to dispose of a modest family contract differently.

Lego success story

Christiansen drew attention to the fact that his son and first assistant Godtfred collects large chips, vaguely resembling different figurines, paints them and successfully exchanges with his friends for things of children's interest. The ingenuity of Ole Kirk prompted the Danish carpenter to expand the assortment of the workshop with wooden toys. The pioneer in the new product line was the duck on wheels. The children's line of business was gaining popularity and began to bring a disproportionately large profit compared to other products. Already in 1934, the carpentry workshop received the sonorous name of Lego. The company owes its name to the same resourcefulness of Ole Kirk Christiansen. It was he who, based on the new direction of the workshop, connected the first two syllables of the Danish words "LEg GOdt", which means "play well". In addition, the chosen name became prophetic in terms of translation from Latin - “I collect”, as well as “I study” ...

A more detailed dive into the success story of the Lego company allows us to find out that the idea of ​​​​a fastening constructor was spied on by Mr. Christiansen Sr. from the English company Kiddcraft. Its founder Harry Fisher in the mid-1940s invented and patented cubes with four and eight ledges on the surface for interconnection. A trip to Foggy Albion in 1947 was a fateful one for the founder of Lego. In addition to purchasing a molding machine for the production of plastic parts - in order to diversify the production of wooden toys with plastic ones - Ole Kirk Christiansen received permission to use samples of Kiddcraft toy building blocks.

He modified the design of the English designer and, with the help of a newly acquired unit, launched "automatically interlocking bricks" into production. This is the long name of the first pieces of modern Lego.

lego legacy

May 1, 1954 is considered the birthday of the world-famous brand, since it was on this day that the Lego name was officially registered. The new manager of the company, the son of the founder, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, realized that the "highlight" of his products should be the creation of a fundamentally new system creative children's games. The concept was based on the philosophy of multifunctional construction. In the form of Lego bricks, it opened up an inexhaustible source for the realization of children's fantasies, from the construction of earthly castles to the construction of space stations. When the Lego Play System, the Lego Play System's engine of innovation, found its enthusiastic consumer despite the imperfection of the bricks' adhesion, Christiansen Jr. realized that he had found his "goose that lays the golden eggs."

At the same time, a technical failure in the quality of holding Lego parts together for several years was a stumbling block for a full-scale ideological revolution in the world of children's designers. Raw materials for the production of cubes, due to their chemical characteristics, did not allow achieving high-quality mutual adhesion of parts. Godtfred managed to solve the technical part of the problem thanks to the invention of a new system for connecting blocks of the “thorn-tube” type, which is also used in modern Lego designers. The issue with raw materials was removed after successful experiments with ABC polymer. It is this type of plastic that allows spikes and tubes to be securely fastened. In fact, in January 1958, the design of the Lego brick, painfully familiar to us, was patented.

It is worth noting that all the cubes produced since the receipt of this patent are fully connected with parts that come off the assembly line today. Such continuity becomes even more relevant due to the fact that one generation is simply not able to implement all possible combinations. It has been mathematically proven that more than 915 million combinations can be made from six 8-stud single-color Legos.

Working for a small consumer forced the company's employees to think through all sorts of options for the "use" of cubes by young designers. Barium sulfate provides an invaluable service to Lego. It is this water-insoluble salt that is part of the plastic of all parts. It is non-toxic and highly visible on x-rays, allowing the cube to be quickly identified if swallowed. Lego figures are also designed to be accidentally swallowed. In order to avoid an attack of suffocation in such a situation, all the "little men" are equipped with special holes.

Gender miscalculation...

The beginning of the 1970s met the company unkindly. The exorbitant level of popularity of the designer, who covered consumers like a tsunami, has dropped sharply to a critical level. The buyer, tempted by the abundance of the market, having had enough of Legov's bricks, began to look to the side. However, the third generation of the Christiansen family, Mr. Kjell, was able to inhale new life into production. The grandson of the founder of the company went on a serious shift in the concept of the gaming system. The basic line of universal construction sets aimed at developing children's imagination was supplanted by the creation of a whole complex of narrowly focused thematic sets. In addition, the transport series was provided with electric motors. These conceptual innovations have paid off. Since the beginning of the next decade, the company's revenue has averaged 10% per year.

At the same time, the company's attempt to reach a new consumer using the gender factor was a serious miscalculation. The Scala set, designed specifically for little coquettes, did not find a response in their hearts and was soon discontinued, bringing considerable losses.

Anti-crisis management “legowski”

Subsequently, the European Court finally legalized their activities, ruling that the design of the Lego brick cannot be a trademark, since it has an exclusively technical function. Taking advantage of this decision, serious gaming giants began to fill the niche of designers a la Lego, depriving the Lego Group of a monopoly comfortable for a successful business.

In the early 1990s, miscalculations by management in assessing the market and a serious increase in competition marked the beginning of a long-term managerial crisis. The era of computer games made it worse. 1998 brought a kind of anti-record - the company's losses amounted to $48 million. Anti-crisis management led to the dismissal of more than a thousand age-old employees, the creation of a mini-movie studio for shooting cartoons with Lego characters, the development of a line of programmable robots, which made it possible to seriously increase the age limit of the consumer, as well as the opening of the production of related products, including clothing, etc. Thus, an attempt to keep up with the trends of the “fast world” and diversify capital has led to a shift in the production focus from the design direction to other, often alien to the company, lines of business. As a result, the pursuit of innovation almost brought the Lego Group to the sad bankruptcy procedure.

The turning point in determining the future of the company was the statement by the director of strategic development Jörgen Knudstorp that none of the innovations in the Lego Group is profitable, and the management system is not effective.

At the initiative of Mr. Knudstorp, the Lego Group got rid of the ballast of non-targeted and unprofitable business lines, relocated production to countries with cheap labor, and established an online scheme for exchanging ideas with its customers. An important step was the revival of the traditional Lego game system, as well as a return to the classic design and size of the bricks.

The measures proved to be effective. After a long peak, the company managed to return to the ranks of serious players. According to Lego Group vice president John Goodwin, the company's net profit in 2015 grew by 31% and reached 9.2 billion Danish kroner.

40 trillion cubes to the moon

Confirmation of the Lego Group's newfound status as a gaming heavyweight is that the Guinness Book of Records is full of all sorts of "achievements" of spiked tubular parts: a 545-meter Lego railroad, a 30-meter tower, full-size working cars, printing printers, Amur tiger life-size ... The scope of the bricks seems limitless.

According to the rigorous calculations of the company's employees, the total production of various design elements for all the years of production exceeds 760 trillion pieces. Only the number of released animated Lego figures is rapidly approaching the population of our planet ... The gigantomania of the Lego Group management prompted the company to carry out mathematical calculations, according to which a tower of 40 trillion Lego cubes will reach the moon.

Fortune magazine, while paying tribute to Lego's status as the best toy of the century, indulged in a very truthful joke, writing that of the countless bricks scattered around the globe, "almost certainly 10 billion fell under sofa cushions, and another 3 billion are inside vacuum cleaners" .

Lego-dividends for "enough" owners

Undoubtedly, innovative technologies coupled with a competent business ideology is the key to a successful future. British financial analysts made an almost sensational statement. According to them, people who bought Lego sets 15 years ago, if sold today, will earn more than those who invested in gold and stocks in the same period. For example, the designer from the Star Wars series called the Millennium Falcon, the market price of which in 2007 was about 342 pounds, today can be purchased from the "enough" owners for 2.7 thousand pounds, which is equivalent to 280 thousand rubles ... It turns out that that Lego is like good cognac. Over the years, only increases in value.

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Slogan: Play On
Just Imagine...

The most famous toy in the world, the dream of many little boys and girls - construction set lego appeared in Denmark, the kingdom of children's fairy tales, in the homeland of Hans-Christian Andersen. It seems that it was there, in a country with a magical atmosphere, with love for the world of childhood, that a wonderful designer was supposed to appear, they could come up with it and appreciate it. Wonderful invention - designer lego became a part of life in Denmark: there in 1968 was built Legoland- whole small world from 45 million cubes lego, where children go with pleasure and, with no less pleasure, adults. Constructor lego received numerous prizes and awards in different countries ah world, quite rightly it has been called one of the most important inventions of the 20th century.

lego- the most recognizable brand in the world of toys, was created in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen, a joiner from the small town of Billund in Denmark (Billund, Denmark). Ole Kirk Christiansen produced stepladders, stools, ironing boards and wooden toys in his small factory. The name of the company was received in 1934 from the phrase "LEg GОdt"– “play well” in Danish. Ole Kirk Christiansen announced a competition for the best name for the company among his employees and, in a tough competition, he himself won it.

1978 Lego set

Since then, the name adorns all the company's products. From adolescence, his son, Gottfried (Godtfred), who later headed the company, also worked next to his father. Many can envy the boy's "hard childhood", since from the age of 17 he devotes himself entirely to modeling and the production of wooden toys. Later leadership Lego Group will be taken over by the founder's grandson Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen.

In 1949 lego begins production of "Automatically connected blocks" with four or eight ledges - you can already recognize the prototype of the future famous designer in them. In 1954, such bricks began to be called "LEGO bricks". Modern system fastening cubes was patented later in 1958. In the same years, the company also developed its own "game system" - a certain set of basic and additional elements of the designer, which every year became more and more complicated. Transport figures, figures of people, then animals, many additional elements and many, many, many more cubes were added to the cubes later.

Form for stamping Lego bricks. Before being on display at Legoland California in August 2008, she stamped over 120 million pieces (legogod photo).

In 1973, the logo appears lego, which we know now, before that, products were produced under several logos, but the company's active entry into the international market led to the creation of a single mark recognizable in all countries. In 1998, a new, more concise version of the logo was created.

lego produces products for children of all ages, and adults are happy to fold not so primitive cubes. most famous series lego that's what it's called Lego or Lego system it is represented by many series: "City", "Castle", "Space", "Pirates", series dedicated to "Star Wars" and "Harry Potter", etc. A series for young children is being produced - DUPLO and for the little ones Primo.

Have lego also a little known series Znap- there are no classic cubes in it, most of all this series is suitable for the construction of bridges, openwork ceilings. Series "Technic" equipped with more complex parts and suitable for robot lovers. Series Mindstorms offers to create not just your own robot, but also, using a computer module, program it at your own discretion. Of course, this takes much more effort and time than if you bought a ready-made robot, but the result exceeds all expectations.

Modern sets are much brighter than their predecessors. lego transport

Basis for success lego- its simplicity and versatility. Responding to the needs of its customers, constantly changing and improving lego has firmly taken its place in children's rooms, it is not boring with it and your imagination is practically unlimited. Small cubes can turn into any toy, any object, embody any fantasy, it all depends on the player. Receiving a box as a gift lego, the child receives a future, potential world, creating which he plays, learns, and develops at the same time. The only but significant drawback lego in the eyes of most buyers is the high cost of the designer, which is far from accessible to everyone.

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Today we will travel to Billund in Denmark to visit a factory that manufactures worldwide famous designer LEGO. Let's look at the production process from the inside, and follow the processing and packaging of the famous designer.

These bricks lie in front of the headquarters of the Lego Group in Billund.

The company was founded in 1932. Its founder was the Dane Ole Kirk Christiansen, who was the foreman of a team of carpenters and joiners. In 1947, the company expanded production and began producing plastic toys. Since its inception in 1949, LEGO elements in all their variants have remained compatible with each other. So, for example, elements created in 1958 are still paired with elements released in 2010, despite the radical changes in the design and shape of the elements over the years.

All LEGO bricks are manufactured to a specific standard with a high degree of precision that allows them to be assembled with little effort. In addition, after connection, the parts must be securely attached to each other. To ensure these conditions, the elements of the designer are produced with an accuracy of 2 micrometers.

Since 1991, with the beginning of the era of computer video games, the Lego company has suffered losses for 11 years, correcting this situation only with the release of new robotic sets.

The process of creating Lego bricks is actually not that complicated. The production of building blocks consists of pouring liquid plastic into a mold and placing it under a press. The form cools, opens - and in your hands you have a ready-made Lego brick. This is followed by the second, more complex part of the process - processing, adding artistic details such as suits, ties, etc.

This is the reception area at Lego headquarters. Pay attention to the ceiling and chairs - they seem to be made of building blocks.

All Lego sets are made from the same plastic based on acrylonitrile, butadiene and styrene. It comes to Lego directly from suppliers and then stored in giant bins. It is usually either red or clear, and the paint for specific pieces is added to the molding machines. This is a container filled with liquid plastic based on acrylonitrile, butadiene and styrene, with the addition of individual dyes.

This is a molding machine. First, very hot plastic is poured into the molds on the right side. It then spreads through small channels and enters the pressing area through very small incisions. When cold water poured into the molding machine, it helps to cool the plastic, and the mold opens, allowing the bricks to fall unhindered onto the conveyor belt.

Currently, there are about 7 thousand active forms that are used in the production of Lego. However, in general, the company has more than 9 thousand such forms at its disposal, many of which are waiting in the wings on the shelves, such as this one. The average form costs about 72 thousand dollars, the cost of the most complex and expensive one is 360 thousand dollars.

Here you can see how the plastic is poured into the pressing area of ​​the molding machine.

In this photo, we see two parts of an ellipsoid shape that have just been in the mold. After a few seconds, they will fall onto the conveyor belt.

In this photo, a mold for making parts of an ellipsoidal shape from the top photo.

Produced bricks and other elements can be subsequently used in different ways. These blue pieces can be used as heads for tiny figurines or as decorations for other elements.

Thousands of purple Lego bricks that were under pressure a few minutes ago.

It is one of twelve molding units located in Billund. In each module, or special production room, there are up to 64 working molding machines, divided into two blocks of 32 machines each.

A robotic arm that removes waste from the melting process and the production of parts from a molding machine. The plastic will be re-smelted and will be used very soon.

Waste basket.

Production at the Lego factory is virtually waste-free as plastics are used. However, some of the waste generated during the production process is still sent to the wastebasket.

Pipes through which plastic granules enter molding machines. The noise it creates is reminiscent of the noise that billions of grains of rice would make moving through plastic pipes.

The molding machines are used for four weeks, and then they are taken out and thoroughly cleaned. In the photo we see a company worker behind this procedure.

At this stage of the production of figures, arms, legs, heads and other additional details and elements will be attached to them.

The robot attaches hands to the figurine.

Here you can see how the machine stamps faces and shirts on the figurines.

This display shows the weight of a small bag of Lego pieces, known as pre-tare. Weight should be between 94.9 and 95.7 grams. This provisional tare weighs 94.94 grams, so it passes the test. However, as the display shows, five bags were too light and one was too heavy.

Lego fragments are pre-packed on a conveyor, at the end of which they are weighed.

This is the packaging department, most of the details are in bags that fall into the container automatically. But some bags are too big and have to be shaken by hand to distribute the parts evenly and make the bags flatter and thinner.

Hundreds of cardboard blanks to make boxes for Star Wars-themed Lego sets.

This machine controls the height of the boxes so that they can close tightly so that the fragments do not fall out during transportation.

Boxes of Star Wars-themed Lego sets on the assembly line.

This machine automatically closes the boxes and seals them.

Boxes of Star Wars-themed Lego sets are fully packed and ready to ship.

This machine takes two ready-made boxes of Star Wars sets and places them in boxes of six.

A worker picks up two boxes that have accidentally fallen off the assembly line.

Each of these boxes contains six boxes of Star Wars-themed Lego sets.

Now these boxes will go to the Czech Republic, where they will get to the official Lego distribution center, to the warehouse of the factory in the city of Kladno, which, by the way, produces 35-40% (over a million parts) of all the company's products. There is a giant robotic warehouse, one of the largest in Europe, where orders are processed and products are sent to retail outlets around the world.

If you have a production or service that you want to tell our readers about, write to Aslan ( [email protected] ) and we will make the best report, which will be seen not only by readers of the community, but also by the site

In September 1996, at the 7th World Family Business Networking Congress, held in Lausanne (Switzerland), the Swiss International Institute Management and Transformation awarded Keld Kirk Christiansen and the LEGO Group with an award for their dedication to the family business, recognizing the company's outstanding achievements over the years. Over the years, Lego has grown into one of the largest and most respected children's toy companies in the world.

Today, the Lego group consists of 41 companies on all six continents. Lego products are sold in more than 60,000 stores and in more than 130 countries.

From 200 to 300 million children and adults have played and are playing with Lego bricks.

And it all started very simply ...

In 1932, the Dane Ole Kirk Christiansen, having saved some money, decided to start his own business, simple and reliable - the production of stepladders and ironing boards. In order not to throw money at first, in the carpentry shed, which was located behind the carpentry shop, he found a job for each of the family members. The youngest son Gottfried Kirk Christiansen worked especially diligently. 12-year-old Gottfried diligently helped clean the workshop twice a day. The father once noticed that the son does not throw away the cutting boards, which look like cubes, but puts them in a separate box.

Gottfried, why do you need this rubbish? - It's not trash, dad. I paint the trimmings and swap them with the guys. They think they are cubes. Look what penknife I got for 12 blue and 12 red dice.

How much have you managed to change already?

All! Only our carpenter cuts the board so neatly that there is almost no waste left.

They say the best thing about rules is exceptions. If the waste in the production of a product is in greater demand than the product itself, then only the lazy will not think about what benefits can be derived from this. Ole Christiansen was not lazy. He began to cut cubes. Here trade revived. Cubes, unlike ironing boards, tend to get lost, so they were bought more often. The old business was done away with: life itself required a new one to be started.

The new business required ingenuity. And Christiansen invented "sets": the cubes were sold in a set by color. To explain to buyers that this is a novelty, the name could. It itself asked for packaging - "A fascinating game." In Danish it sounded "Leg Godt". But not every child could pronounce this combination, Christiansen decided and removed some consonants. The rest is Lego. Later it turned out that "lego" in Latin means nothing more than "I study", "I fold" ... As it turns out, Christensen did an incredible job. accurate forecast. The founder of the famous "design bureau" also formulated the main idea of ​​the company: to make such toys that would help the child learn with pleasure and embody his wildest fantasies in an intricate game.

But it was too early to stop there. In 1934, Ole Kirk Christiansen borrowed three thousand Danish kroner (about $500) from numerous relatives and registered the company. At that time, the company employed 7 people. A few years later, a slogan invented by Ole appeared on the wall of the workshop: "Only the best is worthy." By 1936, the price list included 42 models. The most expensive of these was a cargo van, which cost DKK 36. To Olya's surprise, they dispersed before the paint had time to dry.

For 10 years, the LEGO factory has been developing and covers an area of ​​180 square meters with two floors and an attic of 40 square meters.

At the same time, Ole Christiansen develops original marketing strategy. The idea was extremely simple. Each child could play in the store with any toy they liked for as long as they liked. Not every parent will decide to take away the toy they like from the offspring. While the visitors' children were playing, Ole entertained their parents with conversations. But he did it more out of talkativeness than out of calculation. Parents nodded sympathetically and ... bought another horse. It was in this way that the process of trade in goods went very briskly, and besides, Ole Christiansen's homemade products were then inexpensive.

The family business flourished. All four of Ole's sons were already making rocking horses, ducks on wheels, and were not going to stop there. In the end, the carpenter's shop felt like Gulliver, towering over the competitors swarming below. But not for long, because in March 1942, fate dealt a serious blow. The house, the carpentry shop and the LEg GOdt store were reduced to ashes. A toy warehouse with products for 270 stores burned to the ground. The arsonists were German bombers. Only a year later Insurance Company paid Olya about fifty thousand crowns. They could try to restore the case. And soon the wooden ducks and horses were ready to roll off the assembly line...

In 1944 the company became a family company and became known as "Billund LEGO Toy Factory Limited". The eldest son Gottfred respected his father very much, but believed that in order to stay on the market for a long time, it was necessary scientific approach even when it comes to things like toys. First of all, Gottfred made a distinction between children who play with toys and parents who buy them.

Gottfred classified children's games as follows.

Up to two years, kids, in principle, do not care what to play. If only the toys squealed louder, rang, were brightly colored and, of course, safe.

Older children are already beginning to realize themselves and their gender. And they are fascinated by the so-called role-playing games (boys have their own and girls have their own), copying events from real life. At the same time, real circumstances and objects are replaced by toys.

Gottfred's concept was good because it promised serious profits to toy companies. After all, the reconstructed children's world, like a real adult, can be constantly replenished with new objects and things. Now it only remained to convince adults that role-playing games are most useful for children. But the old wooden cubes were no longer quite suitable for developing this concept. Gottfred wondered what else cubes could be made of. Just as Gottfred Christiansen completed his theoretical research, plastic was invented. The new material was not only safer than wood, but also looked much brighter. It was exactly what was needed.

But go to new material succeeded only in 1947. Under pressure from his son Ole Christiansen, he bought the first machine for the production of plastic cubes in the UK, as well as a patent for their production. Exactly then LEGO was the first company in Denmark to purchase a plastic molding machine to make toys. It was extremely timely. A few months later, Lego filled the shelves of all toy stores with plastic dolls and rattles, which sold great.

But the plastic cubes went badly. They were too light, and the dollhouses built from them inevitably crumbled with any careless movement. However, it was the cubes that seemed to Gottfred to be the most universal game material. Only the traditional cubes had to be improved. At the same time, one of the employees suggested making cubes with pins. Using a die-matrix, making such pins was extremely simple. It was already a "matrix-revolution" - the revolutionary solution was that with the help of pins, a structure built of cubes was made rigid, and therefore movable. Now it was possible to build anything from cubes - they turned into bricks. This made it possible to achieve an unlimited number of combinations and create a wide variety of toys from standard elements.

In 1949, the company produced about 200 different plastic and wooden toys, including easy-to-connect LEGO brick building elements. They were sold exclusively in Denmark. The factory covers an area of ​​2300 square meters and employs 50 workers. Meaning has come to the world of LEGO. In game-sets, predetermined forms appeared, characters appeared.

In 1950, on his thirtieth birthday, Gottfried Kirk Christiansen was appointed Junior Director of the LEGO Company. He continues his work on the development of the LEGO Play System: every new development of LEGO toys is based on the idea that children are able to use play to develop and explore the world at every stage of their growth. The result exceeded all the most optimistic expectations. Lego toys began to be called a sensational invention. And Gottfred Christiansen - a man who managed to combine the game and education.

Since 1953, LEGO bricks have been called "LEGO Mursten" ("LEGO bricks"). In the same year in Billund was founded Foundry. Norway has started making LEGO products, including easy-to-connect LEGO elements, by renting special molds to make plastic toys.

On May 1, 1954, the LEGO name was officially registered in Denmark. The following year, after the LEGO bricks were established in the market, the company released the LEGO Play System, consisting of 28 sets and 8 vehicles, which caused a real sensation. In the same year, plastic toys and the LEGO Play System were exported.

By that time, the LEGO empire continued to improve, new characters appeared not only in play sets, but also in the company's management - the father was replaced by a son. Gottfried Kirk Christiansen was appointed Managing Director, and after Ole Kirk Christiansen's death, his son Gottfried Kirk Christiansen took over LEGO. He honorably continued his father's work. By the early 1960s, there were 50 LEGO sets, 15 vehicles, and a few individual pieces. LEGO designers become familiar to both children and adults. They fully fulfill their purpose - to give joy and encourage creativity, help children develop and explore the world. With building toys, LEGO continued to strive to inspire the child through play, to give them the opportunity to experiment and create their own world where there are no boundaries.

LEGO designers had to answer ten main criteria, which were formulated by Gottfried Kirk Christiansen:

unlimited possibilities when assembling models,

creation of constructors for girls and boys,

the game captivates children of any age and level of development,

stimulates the activity of the child and completely captures him,

you can sit behind the designer for hours,

the designer promotes the development of imagination and creativity,

with the advent of new models, interest in the game increases,

The LEGO theme is always relevant,

constructor is absolutely safe,

LEGO products are of high quality.

Gottfried Kirk Christiansen divided all invented toys into series. For example, for kids from 0 to 4 years old, an educational series of games with cubes was invented. She helped the baby to realize oneself, learn to communicate with other children, develop logical thinking and creative inclinations, and for those who are older, sets were made with role playing, for example, from the life of racers or famous fairy tales. Almost all sets of the designer were combined with each other in such a way that the child was provided with material for creating almost endless fairy tale. Details of almost any constructors could be used in a wide variety of children's fantasies.

However, LEGO considered it premature to stop at this stage of development. In 1968, a new kingdom appears, a fantasy land replete with all sorts of technical fantasies. In the homeland of LEGO, in the Danish town of Billund, appeared LEGOLAND Family Fun Park. In addition to a myriad of attractions for "children from 0 to 99", were collected the most interesting things ever invented by the company's designers. Here you can easily get acquainted with the mass of architectural sights, only in miniature. The Taj Mahal, the Amsterdam embankment, the Acropolis - all this is made from ordinary Legov's cubes, and so skillfully that if you wish, you can conduct art history classes in the town. And nearby are two-meter men made of LEGO bricks, gnomes, flamingos and even a fire-breathing dragon. A bright toy train was running right there, on which visitors to the park enjoyed riding. There was a driving school, where the child drove to his heart's content and solemnly received a driver's license. A little further away was an island of entertainment for the little ones, a Lego rodeo and a country of pirates with a huge caravel anchored by the shore of the pond, and at a distance towered medieval castle with battlements, bridges and flags.

There were so many people who wanted to look at the wonderful park that the Danish outback had toget your own international airport!

Now there are 4 Legoland parks in the world: in Billund (Denmark), in Windsor (UK), in California (USA) and in Gunzburg (Germany). The difference between Legoland Park and Disneyland, first of all, was that they go there not to have fun, but, above all, to study. Disneyland cannot be moved to your home, but Legoland is easy. After all, everything here is made of LEGO bricks.

The LEGO empire expanded like a river in a flood, and spread across the world. Branches arose in Switzerland, across the ocean - in the USA. LEGO has its fans. And even growing up, they did not give up the "game of cubes." Proof of this are the studies of one American company. She set out to find out which toys are most in demand among adults. The action was held under the slogan "We all come from childhood." According to some reports, more than 10 thousand people were interviewed in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Great Britain, Germany and Australia. The results of a peculiar test shocked its organizers. As it turns out, most men and women between the ages of 30 and 50 prefer Lego. It was these designers who took first place in the ranking.

In 1977, Keld Kirk Christiansen, grandson of Ole Kirk Christiansen, and third generation owner of the LEGO Group, joins the leadership of the Lego empire. A couple of years later he was named President of INTERLEGO A/S (renamed LEGO A/S in January 1987).

In the period until the end of the 20th century, LEGO was at the height of its glory, as evidenced by the following facts:

the star discovered in the constellation Ursa Minor was named LEGO;

in Italy, they staged an opera from the life of the LEGO company, starting in 1932.

The American Fortune magazine called the LEGO brick "the product of the century" because it changed people's lives in the 20th century.

"British Toy Dealers Association" awarded Lego the title "Toys of the Century" The award was presented on January 30, 2000.

But technological progress did not stand still and new generations of children began to move from the real world of the game to the virtual one. The place of cubes began to be occupied by computer games. For the "Lego Empire" revealed serious threat. But Keld Christiansen did not lose faith in the work begun by his grandfather. Therefore, one day he assembled a board of directors, at which he greatly puzzled everyone that it was necessary to look for new forms of play not only for children, but also for the company itself. Realizing this, LEGO began to change its strategy, went to an alliance with new technologies, but only so that they would help the cubes “get smarter”. And after a while, it was already possible to assemble mini-robots from LEGO bricks, which were controlled from a distance. At the same time, thanks to the built-in video systems, the robots learned to “see”, and for moviegoers of any age, Danish entertainers, together with Steven Spielberg, invented the LEGO Studio to shoot real movies.

By the end of 1998, LEGO Media International had released three computer games - LEGO Creator, LEGO Chess and LEGO Loco. The era of high technology made it possible to attach toys to personal computer. Even "smart" cubes were created: elements with a computer built into them and batteries (the "LEGO Mindstorms" series). Now novice designers have something to be proud of: toy aircraft roar like real planes, and cars are driven by a radio transmitter.

LEGO sets star Wars became the best-selling product in Europe. The LEGO Company has undergone a personnel restructuring, which has simplified the organization system, and recruited new employees from different countries, who are expected to be involved in projects of the 21st millennium.

So LEGO does not leave the battlefield yet, its designers are ready to fight not in virtual, but in real dimensions.

So what made LEGO a mega brand?

First, His Majesty The case in which creativity and interest to the simplest things played a major role.

Secondly, mutual support all family members who share the idea and concept of LEGO.

Third, confidence in success and unconditional optimism of its creators.

And further - attention to people, knowledge of the world of children and the psychology of consumers, subtle consideration of the current and future interests of buyers. The founders of the company focused on socialization, trying to facilitate the process of introducing the child to adult life.

But there was another secret. The LEGO company has contributed to the eternal search for the meaning of life. The LEGO philosophy was reflected in a slogan that could not help but touch the mind and soul of any person trying to survive in this complex world: "We want to awaken the child in each of you." The philosophy is both simple and wise at the same time: a person must always remain a child. Only in this way can he learn, succeed, learn new things, change the world.