History of Lego - Expansion

Expansion

The coming decades marked considerable expansion into new frontiers of toy making and marketing. Lego began to target the female market with the introduction of furniture pieces and dollhouses in 1971. The Lego universe expanded its transportation possibilities with the addition of boat and ship sets, with hull pieces that actually floated, in 1972.

During this same period, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen's son, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, joined the managerial staff of the company, after earning business degrees in Switzerland and Denmark. One of Kjeld's first achievements with the company was the foundation of manufacturing facilities, as well as a research and development department that would be responsible for keeping the company's manufacturing methods up to date. Human figures with posable arms made an appearance in 1974 in "Lego family" sets, which went on to become the biggest sellers at the time; in the same year, an early version of the "minifigure" miniature Lego person was introduced, but it was not posable and had no face printed on its head. A Lego production plant was opened in Enfield, Connecticut in the United States.

"Expert Series" sets were first introduced in 1975, geared towards older, more experienced Lego builders. This line soon developed into the "Expert Builder" sets, released in 1977. These technical sets featured moving parts such as gears, differentials, cogs, levers, axles and universal joints, and permitted the construction of realistic models such as automobiles, with functional rack and pinion steering and lifelike engine movements. Finally, the Lego world came together in 1978 with the addition of the Lego "minifigure". These small Lego people have posable arms and legs, and a friendly smile. The figure was used in many varieties of Lego sets, allowing consumers to construct elaborate towns with buildings, roads, vehicles, trains, and boats, at the same scale, and populated with the smiling minifigure Lego citizens.

Another significant expansion to the Lego line occurred in 1979, with the creation of Lego Space sets. Astronaut minifigures, rockets, lunar rovers and spaceships populated this successful series. The Scala series debuted in this year as well, featuring jewelry elements marketed towards young girls. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen became the president of Lego in this year; another decade concluded with Lego toys still going strong.

Lego bricks had always had a constructive potential that was seen by some educators as being an invaluable asset in helping children to develop creativity and problem-solving abilities. Since the 1960s, teachers had been using Lego bricks in the classroom for a variety of reasons. In 1980, the Lego Group established the Educational Products Department (eventually renamed Lego Dacta, in 1989), specifically to expand the educational possibilities of their toys. A packing and assembly factory opened in Switzerland, followed by another in Jutland, Denmark that manufactured Lego tires.

The second generation of Lego trains appeared in 1981. As before these were available in either 4.5 V (battery powered) or 12 V (mains powered), but a much wider variety of accessories were available, including working lights, remote-controlled points and signals, and decouplers.

The "Expert Builder" series matured in 1982, becoming the "Technic" series. 13 August of that year marked the Lego Group's 50th anniversary; the book 50 Years of Play was published to commemorate the occasion. In the following year, the Duplo system was expanded to include sets for even younger audiences, particularly infants; new sets included baby rattles and figures with adjustable limbs. The year after, Lego minifigure citizens gained a realm of knights and horses, with the introduction of the first Castle sets. Light & Sound sets made their appearance in 1985; these sets included a battery pack with electrical lights, buzzers, and other accessories to add another dimension of realism to Lego creations. Also that year, the Lego Group's educational division produced the Technic Computer Control, which was an educational system whereby Technic robots, trucks, and other motorized models could be controlled with a computer. Manaus, Brazil gained a Lego factory in this year, as well.

In 1984, the Technic line was expanded with the addition of pneumatic components.

In August 1988, 38 children from 17 different countries took part in the first Lego World Cup building contest, held in Billund. That same year, Lego Canada was established. The Lego line grew again in 1989 with the release of the Lego Pirates series, which featured a variety of pirate ships, desert islands and treasure; the series was also the first to depart from the standard minifigure smiling face to create an array of piratical characters. The Lego Group's Educational Products Department was renamed Lego Dakta in this year; the name is derived from the Greek word "didactic", which roughly means "the study of the learning process." MIT's Dr. Seymour Papert, from the Laboratory of Computer Learning, was named "Lego Professor of Learning Research," after his ongoing work in linking the Logo programming language with Lego products.

A new series designed for advanced builders was released in 1990. Three Model Team sets, including a race car and an off-road vehicle, featured a level of detail and realism not previously seen in any Lego series. Where Technic was mechanically accurate, Model Team was visually and stylistically accurate. The Lego Group became one of the top 10 toy companies in this year; it was the only toy company in Europe to be among the top 10. Legoland Billund had more than one million visitors in this year, for the first time in its history. The first-ever "Lego Professor of Business Dynamics," Xavier Gilbert, was appointed to an endowed chair at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. Lego Malaysia was also established in 1990. In 1991, the Lego Group standardized its electrical components and systems; the Trains and Technic motors were made 9V to bring the systems into line with the rest of the Lego range.

Two Guinness records were set in 1992 using Lego products: A castle made from 400,000 Lego bricks, and measuring 4.45 meters by 5.22 meters, was built on Swedish television, and a Lego railway line 545 meters in length, with three locomotives, was constructed. Duplo was augmented with the addition of the Toolo line featuring a screwdriver, wrench, nuts and bolts; the Paradisa line, targeted towards girls, brought a variety of new pastel colors into the Lego system and focused around horses and a beach theme. 1993 brought a Duplo train and a parrot-shaped "brickvac" that could scoop Lego pieces up off the floor.

Early prototypes of the Lego minifigure had a variety of skin colors and facial expressions, but production designs used only a yellow skin color and standard smiling face. Lego Pirates in 1989 expanded the array of facial expressions by adding beards and eye patches. Soon the other themes caught on, ranging from sun glasses, lipstick, eyelashes, and so on. However, many of the older collectors resented the new look, saying they looked too "cartoon-ish" or "kiddy", and preferred the simplistic nature of the two eyes and smile. Nevertheless, from 1999 licensed series such as Lego Star Wars and Lego Harry Potter gave minifigures the personas of specific characters from their cinematic counterparts, but it was not until 2003, with the introduction of Lego Basketball, that the palette of skin tones broadened to include more lifelike colors.

In the late 1990s, the Lego Group brought out a series of new and specialized ranges aimed at particular demographics. The Bionicle range uses Technic pieces and specialist moldings to create a set of action figures for boys, while Belville is a more conventional line aimed at girls and featuring large posable figures like those in the Technic range. A "Lego 4 Juniors" group features 2-inch (51 mm) tall medium-sized figures ("medi-figure") without jointed arms, and longer legs than the classic Lego minifigure. In 2003, the Lego Group introduced a completely new system, Clikits, aimed at girls and consisting of customizable plastic jewelry and accessories. In 2004, Lego added the QUATRO brick, for ages 1–3. Much like Duplo, a Quatro brick is four times the dimension of a regular Lego brick, and is compatible with the Duplo brick. Also that year, they created the second line of Knights Kingdom themed product.

The late 1990s also saw the first products featuring licensed characters. In 1999, Star Wars Lego and Winnie the Pooh Duplo were released. These were followed by characters from Harry Potter to figures from other Steven Spielberg movies. Before this, Lego characters were always designed in-house, and lacked the strong characterisation of these licensed characters. A number of in-house characters after this point were strongly characterised with media utilisation and non-Lego System merchandising in mind, most notably Bionicle.