Stickers vs Prints in LEGO Sets: What's Up With That...? [Part 1]

The only thing I can say is that I hate them, that it looks horrible and that the "other" brands (who are significantly less expensive as quality of the bricks are growing) often have all bricks printed instead of stickers.
Also some sets are leaning too much on stickers to save bricks.
All that while sets are becoming more and more expensive is extreemly off putting.

Another good article, thanks! I do understand the use of stickers, I just wish LEGO's quality control were better for them, with colours actually matching the bricks (among other things).

I would be very interested to learn what TLG's focus groups have said in the past about stickers versus printed pieces.

I've never had an issue with stickers. But you mentioned something I'd never thought of before - I too, grew up on Airfix kits, so decals are just another part of building stuff for me. So maybe that's why I never understood the hate of stickers.

(Although I totally don't trust kids to align them to my standards, so when I buy second hand Lego, I always try to buy the sticker sheet unused!)

Hate me but, I actually like a lot of the stickers Lego produce. Putting them on is a chore but very satisfying when done well. They, for the most part, look good when new. However they age badly, regardless of what anyone says. Just purchased a replacement set for my Ninjago city as they have deteriorated so badly. SO….give me printed bricks from now on, Lego, thank you.

I don't mind them, especially not on larger pieces, mainly because modern LEGO stickers are indeed very good quality and quite forgiving allowing adjustments before completely adhering, if you are careful .

Rather than focusing on printing the large pieces (Star Wars plaques, I am looking at you), I wish LEGO (designers) would focus on trying to get most stickered 1x1 or 1x2 tiles, and each round tile printed. These are actually the ones I struggle with the most to get right. Especially the round tiles are quite difficult to get right, and not (even slightly) crooked.

My issues with stickers being used over prints are to do with the mismatching of colours, gaps in words/lettering and fading over time. If you print something on a dark blue brick, then the colour surrounding the printing is transparent. If you apply a sticker to a dark blue brick, the background of the sticker will not be the same shade as the brick. If you print the word "SHELL" on a brick, the letters will be correctly spaced. If you apply S, H, E, L, L stickers, there will be a gap and seam between each letter. The white 1x6 brick with SHELL on it, will yellow over time (given when it was made), but the lettering will stay red. A sticker will fade until the letters are a very pale pink. And IMO the argument regarding not printing a brick/piece enabling re-use, is completely silly unless that brick/piece only exists in a single set.

@matrox2001 said:
"..... they age badly, regardless of what anyone says. Just purchased a replacement set for my Ninjago city as they have deteriorated so badly. SO….give me printed bricks from now on, Lego, thank you."

That is interesting, because I had my Ninjago City since day one and the stickers still look like new. No issues with discolouration or peeling here.

Plenty of points that should have no bearing on 18+ display sets costing hundreds of dollars. Besides that, stickers wouldn't hurt as much if they were cut properly on the sheets and the color consistency with bricks was anything but laughable. Then again, prints often have the same problem, not to mention light-on-dark printing... So yea, the problem is LEGO overall quality at this point.
Ah, one more thing - curved pieces like canopies should ALWAYS be printed and NOT stickered. Seriously, anyone deciding on stickers for that should spend the rest of eternity applying those stickers.

I'm perfectly happy with stickers in most cases, as I want to be able to use the parts for MOCs. Some prints might be useful elsewhere but they would often limit the reusability of a part.

Funny how everybody is complaining about stickers, yet nobody mentions that if they would be replaced by all prints, price would be even higher.

Then again, as mentioned, I don't mind stickers at all. I even like applying them. breaks up the build a bit and it's fun to try to align them perfectly.

Thanks for giving us some insights on this as we've seen many comments on this website alone.

21324 Sesame street is one of the few sets where I've dared to put the stickers on and they look really good. I even looked up YouTube videos to get some good tips.

But mostly I keep stickers off, because I've seen how they can look over time. And it didn't help when I watched a review of 75902 Mystery Machine and the stickers were loose. Wrong application perhaps, but at that time I wasn't confident I could do a better job.

I guess some consider Mega an inferior brand, but I really enjoyed the Masters of the Universe sets they've made. And it's all prints, no stickers. So why can't Lego if they are supposed to be better?

Since we are on the topic of printing, some of the printing on mini figures have been great, but some have been very bad. It even stopped me from buying some of them. What's up with that? ;-)
Perhaps a whole article by itself.

@MrBedhead said:
" @matrox2001 said:
"..... they age badly, regardless of what anyone says. Just purchased a replacement set for my Ninjago city as they have deteriorated so badly. SO….give me printed bricks from now on, Lego, thank you."

That is interesting, because I had my Ninjago City since day one and the stickers still look like new. No issues with discolouration or peeling here."

Mostly cracking and some of the clear backed ones look like crazy paving.

Have sets from the same year and theme, some the stickers have started pealing and lifting, others are fine.

Have stickers from the 80s which are still like new. Others have turned to dust (well known in sets from the 2000s) Especally the Mars mission sets and city Coast Guard.

@MrBedhead said:
"Funny how everybody is complaining about stickers, yet nobody mentions that if they would be replaced by all prints, price would be even higher."
Yes yes, we know, any change for the better is crazy expensive and the entire 150% cost has to be thrown back at the customers. Funnily enough though, the changes for the worse never make the sets cheaper...

@MrBedhead said:
"Funny how everybody is complaining about stickers, yet nobody mentions that if they would be replaced by all prints, price would be even higher.

Then again, as mentioned, I don't mind stickers at all. I even like applying them. breaks up the build a bit and it's fun to try to align them perfectly."

Either prices would be higher or piece count would be lower. Either way it would simply replace one common complaint with a separate one (along with creating other distinct issues like no longer having the option to keep certain parts undecorated if you prefer).

Personally I like stickers, especially since they've allowed more sets to have more varied decorations. In the old days, a theme or subtheme would tend to have a handful of printed parts shared across all sets—these days there's more opportunities for individualized detail.

One thing I don't see mentioned often is that I sometimes miss some of the more varied types of stickers in older sets! Remember the awesome holographic astronaut sticker from Exploriens? It'd be cool to see more of that sort of thing again—stickers used for unique features that prints could never achieve.

@OttoT said:
"The only thing I can say is that I hate them, that it looks horrible and that the "other" brands (who are significantly less expensive as quality of the bricks are growing) often have all bricks printed instead of stickers.
Also some sets are leaning too much on stickers to save bricks.
All that while sets are becoming more and more expensive is extreemly off putting."

I see your points, but there are also notable differences between LEGO and other, perhaps smaller companies. For one, I bet LEGO applies much more stringent quality standards to their materials than other comparable companies

Display sets (D2C, 18+) should be able to be displayed for a number of years and external stickers should be avoided either by using normal bricks or printed parts to add details.

The Razor Crest is a great example of where stickers really detract from what is otherwise a superb set and where it seems other options should have been possible.

I've had a few bad experiences with stickers. The most recent I think is 42053 where the stickers have just disintegrated, like the Williams F1 a long time ago.
Most of the badly applied stickers are my own fault, for being stubborn and building at night in bad lighting. But some are just really hard to apply, like the ones going around a curved windscreen in Speed Champions sets. Do designers take that into account?
And speaking of SC, on the endurance car in 76922 there are 5 stickers on an already printed windscreen...
In some cases stickers are actually better. LEGO continues to print light on dark and it just looks shit. Printing yellow on black, like on the driver in 75877, makes it look greenish. On the nose of 76919 I would have preferred a sticker. The printed piece really stands out with its totally different orange.
One issue I do have with stickers is colour matching. The bright white stickers look wrong on the creamy white bricks. Some are okay, but there's a number of colours that never properly match.

They are annoying, but Lego is improving. I'm noticing a lot less stickers on new sets I buy.

I like stickers. As long as they're decently colour matched I find applying them very satisfying.

The exception to this is 1x1 round tile stickers which can quite literally go swivel.

Prints are fun too. But I'd always rather have more bricks to build actual physical details.

Very informative article. Much appreciated.

Similar to Technic pins, I never truly hated stickers in LEGO sets, I've just always found them to be a part of the experience.

What I really don't like about stickers is how the dimensions of most stickers don't match the surface area which they are being applied to. Thus making it really hard to align the stickers with the pieces.

Notably for example 77012 Fighter Plane Chase, which had a large, transparent rectangular sticker which was to be applied to the fighter's cockpit. On top of it being really difficult to align the rectangular shape on the curved surface, the sticker itself being transparent meant that if you took a bit too long to stick it, OR if you held onto too much of its surface area, you got your nasty fingerprints trapped under it.

Which is exactly why I think ALL stickers on transparent elements should be prints instead.

Another point I wanted to make is the colour matching on pieces, and issue which also plagues printing unfortunately (just look at the legs on any Qui-Gon Jinn minifigure, even the latest version). The light bluish gray stickers like the ones from 76911 007 Aston Martin DB5 barely even match the colour of the bricks and it's pretty noticeable when you look at it.

Same with a lot of white stickers I see which almost look yellow when applied to white pieces (or sometimes, the white pieces look off-white when compared with white stickers?)

Interesting read (as always!), though so far nothing really new. Already looking forward to part 2...

I've been pretty vocal about sticker use by Lego, and in several cases they have been a big factor in deciding if I get a set or not.

For starters: I am not completely opposed to stickers though. In a play set, when given the choice between prints or more pieces, yeah, I get it. And indeed those will often only be build once, then taken apart and used in other ways. Heck, the cheapest way for Lego to add value to City or Friends sets would be to just throw in some additional sticker sheets, kids love those!

On a pure display set though....especially if it's one that costs hundreds of euros, it becomes very hard to buy into the cost aspect. Lego is very expensive and keeps presenting itself as some premium brand, meanwhile much smaller competitors manage to make cheaper sets with only prints (and often better quality than Lego), or even unique moulds for just a single set (a practice I'm not really a fan of, but you can't deny the cost involved). And considering they do stay in business, they seem to do so at a profit.

And then there's the issue that Lego just isn't that good at stickers. Yes, nowadays stickers indeed do seem durable (that has been different in the not so far past....), but Lego seemingly can't manage to match the colors. And for me, that truly makes it a deciding factor in either applying the stickers or not, or not even buying a set in the first place.
(to be fair, prints aren't always that great either, with very inconsistent alignment and often lacking opacity)

I mean, I applied all of the stickers on my Ecto-1. Clear backed, so at least they look good. I would have prefered prints, but I'm not really bothered by them. But then take the big Space Shuttle. With very white stickers on not quite white bricks, those look terrible even in the official promotional pictures. Which makes me wonder how they even got approved. And then there's those chrome stickers, that apparently are a nightmare to apply without messing them up. And you don't even get a single spare. Enough reason for me to not even try.

And the more expensive sets get, the higher the quality standards I would expect. When I see €500+ Star Wars UCS sets with very obvious stickers.....I just can't see ANY valid excuse for that.

And then there's also the matter if so much decoration was necessary in the first place. This is especially apparent with some Technic sets that get completely plastered by them. And if you could just leave them off, fine. But more often than not without stickers it just looks like BOLOCs. An interesting case of that was the 42139 ATV, which Brickset here even showed how much better it would have been in just one color. And personally, I still think it is better to have a bigger number of pieces in a few colors than just a few pieces in many colors. But I guess that's a different discussion....

There's also some weird choices when they actually do make prints. Like in te Polaroid set, to me it would make sense to focus (pun intended....) primarily on the camera, not the side builds. Yet the camera got a couple of pretty essential stickers (one of which WILL peel off), while the box (that I bet many people will not even bother to display) got prints. Or with the SC Ferrari 512M, those printed transparant tiles next to the headlights that once again didn't match the plastic at all and I just replaced with regular red tiles that look so much better. Waste of a print.

And while I do get Lego can't make an infinite number of unique pieces......it seems they can do an infinite amount of minifig pieces, with sometimes just barely visible alterations? And then there's certain themes that do get tons of prints (looking at you, Mario!), which often only get used in a single set. In the grand scheme of things, it all just doesn't make much sense. But hey, maybe part 2 will dive into that :-)

(is there a limit to how long posts may be? The last bit got cut off....)
As for decals on plastic kits....I feel that's just a completely different building experience to begin with. I mean, I don't paint or glue my Lego kits, and if I have to use a knife or any other tools with them (I even grew up in an era without brick separators but with those cursed black pins....) something is really wrong. Also, regular stickers in a plastic kit are a big no-no. Even when waterslide decals can be a pain to apply, when done right they look amazing and will last forever. And I still have some kits I put together about 35 years ago to back this up. My childhood Lego stickers on the other hand....

For sets that cost hundreds, like the Daily Bugle, or the Gotham city mural, stickers ruin the set and stop me buying. Basically it’s Lego taking the cheap option because they can get away with it, fleecing customers and making huge profits.

There's also the disintegration issue. The old Sopwith Camel, 3451, was a notorious example for me, but there have been others. I generally don't mind stickers, but I do need them to not disintegrate. Other than that, there's exactly one model where the stickers were unacceptable and that was the canopy of Red Five X-Wing 10240. A huge pain to line them all up, nearly impossible to apply without bubbles, and on an expensive UCS set to boot.

As I type this, though, I'm half way through building 80054 which has 75 stickers and honestly, I'm rather enjoying the stickers. I agree with the sentiment of stickers being just part of the build, and they add so much to that set with all the busy advertisements and signs. So long as they last and my work isn't undone in 10 years, no problem here.

The clear-backed stickers are fine. The white-backed ones on the other hand tend to self-destruct after a few years. Why does Lego still use those?

sometimes they are "mandatory"... I hate when there are stickers in sets that cost €200/300 or more. the worst are those on the round parts

"To give them credit, the stickers that The LEGO Group use are also INCREDIBLY hard wearing. "

This isnt always true though, is it. Lego stickers are INCREADIBLY variable in how hard-wearing they are. The stickers on my UCS Snowspeeder had all peeled and curled within a year, where other stickers from the same time-frame and stored in the same conditions are still perfect today. I have 20-year-old stickers that are perfect and 20-year-old stickers that have disintegrated, and everything in-between from every year in-bewteen. The clear-backed ones seem to consistently perform well in my experience, where the opaque-backed ones are a lot more hit and miss even on the same colour.

Overall though, I do immensely prefer stickers over prints, for their versatility. And when a printed design across multiple parts doesnt line up properly (which is the case more often than it isnt), there's nothing you can do about it

@matrox2001 said:
" @MrBedhead said:
" @matrox2001 said:
"..... they age badly, regardless of what anyone says. Just purchased a replacement set for my Ninjago city as they have deteriorated so badly. SO….give me printed bricks from now on, Lego, thank you."

That is interesting, because I had my Ninjago City since day one and the stickers still look like new. No issues with discolouration or peeling here."

Mostly cracking and some of the clear backed ones look like crazy paving.

Have sets from the same year and theme, some the stickers have started pealing and lifting, others are fine.

Have stickers from the 80s which are still like new. Others have turned to dust (well known in sets from the 2000s) Especally the Mars mission sets and city Coast Guard.

"

Exactly. I wouldn't mind stickers so much if Lego still produced them in good quality. Stickers from the 1980s and 1990s will still look as good as new if you weren't too rough with your stickered bricks but stickers from the 21st century will show heavy cracking. My 10184 looks very bad because of the bad sticker quality. This applies primarily to stickers with solid colored background. Transparent stickers don't seem to have this problem.

@OttoT said:
" and that the "other" brands (who are significantly less expensive as quality of the bricks are growing) often have all bricks printed instead of stickers."

This is *the* counterargument. All of the points in this article make total sense until you realise there are competitor brands who manage it with no problem. Of course, they don't make nearly as much profit as TLG does, which might be the real crux of the issue!

I don't really have a big problem with stickers as I am good at applying them. I understand why not all bricks can be printed, I only have a problem with it when it's hundreds of stickers used on for instance a small Speed Champions set. And for some premium items it would be better if they're prints because they last longer. But another point that is being discussed less is that the die-cutting for Lego stickers has become incredibly poor, in addition to the bad color matching with the bricks.

The stickers are always cut off-centered, so there is no use for me applying them perfectly because they'll be misaligned anyway. I keep ordering new sticker sheets from customer service but they're off a lot of the time.

@Pollywanna said:
" @OttoT said:
" and that the "other" brands (who are significantly less expensive as quality of the bricks are growing) often have all bricks printed instead of stickers."

This is *the* counterargument. All of the points in this article make total sense until you realise there are competitor brands who manage it with no problem. Of course, they don't make nearly as much profit as TLG does, which might be the real crux of the issue!"
You are not entirely wrong, but also not entirely right.

1. Other producers are usually a lot smaller than LEGO, which makes the logistics of printing parts a lot simpler... and cheaper. If you produce only a few 1000 sets per month of a certain model, it might be doable to partially print by hand. If you produce 100s of 1000s of sets per month, not so much
2. Most alternative brick producers are located and producing entirely in China. Cheap labour, cheap production. These brick producers will only print parts when requested by whoever requests the prints.
3. The only two brick producers that I can think of that are not in China, that print everything, are MEGA (part of Mattel) and Cobi. MEGA's MSRP's are usually even higher than LEGO's. But the price on the market is lower. Whether that is because MEGA overinflates its MSRP on purpose, or whether nobody wants to buy these sets at MSRP, I do not know. Cobi produces only in Poland, prints everything (now) and is a lot smaller than LEGO. Yet, their prices are also creeping up and are getting in LEGO territory. I respect both brands, btw, and have built sets of both, and can say that while both are good, their brick quality is not as good as LEGO's.
4. Sets sold in Europe by other European brands who source bricks from Chinese sources usually either do not have prints (Bluebrixx specials), or have prints (some Bluebrixx licensed sets). The ones that have prints are (not surprisingly) more expensive than the ones that dont.
5. Other Chinese brands selling in Europe directly (CADA, Funwhole,...) mostly do not have many prints, and will even have stickers across multiple parts (CADA). The only Chinese brand that seems to print everything is Pantasy. I have not built a Pantasy set yet, but would like to (if they would release something that interests me).

Stickers wouldn't be so annoying if they fit better on the bricks. But the way Lego cuts them, they are too small and you end up with gaps if the design is sectioned onto 2 or more bricks.
The opposite is also true sometimes when the stickers are too big, like when they do a full-tile sticker just to put a small car emblem or door handle in a small area. Just print those...
Speed Champions is the worst offender.

Also I don't understand the latest Harry Potter Arrival set that has stickered shields. Are we going back to the 80s?

I get why stickers are used in place of prints, but there really is nothing like a build without them. Animal Crossing and Creator sets are probably the best examples; plus, the print quality in both themes is superb.

I am completely fine with stickers for play sets but they are unacceptable for collector and display sets, lets say everything more expensive than 150€.
Arguing that printing bricks would be much more expensive is ridiculous as the production costs of a set have nothing to do with the retail price. I would guess almost every set produced is in the two-digits cost range.
I would also agree, that the sticker material quality is fine and forgives reapplying them multiple times but it's really embarrassing that Lego to this day is too incompetent (or not caring at all) to match the sticker background color with the actual brick color the sticker is applied on. Of course this issue will be less of a topic with the general rapid downfall of the (once famous) Lego brick quality where a single color is shipped in tons of different shades for a single set, like in the typewriter.

Appreciate I’m probably in the minority, but I would absolutely pay slightly more for all prints instead of stickers in a set.

@MrBedhead said:
"Funny how everybody is complaining about stickers, yet nobody mentions that if they would be replaced by all prints, price would be even higher."
If that were true then explain to me why sets from Cobi, Mega, Qman or BlueBrixx (among others) that have 100% printed pieces cost less (in most cases) or at maximum the same as LEGO sets of comparable size that feature almost only stickers.

Or explain to me why sets like the current City Space range, or the retro Galaxy Explorer 10497 or the Saturn V 21309 (among others) cost so little in comparison with sets of the same size and piece count that are stickers only.

I believe that LEGO just decides what they want the set to cost, no matter the delivered quality and quantity of pieces, prints, stickers or extras like light/sound bricks, motors, etc.
Just look through the current range. There are so many sets where price and content of the box just doesn't align at all - either in one or the other direction.

@Freddy_Hodson said:
"I actually quite like stickers. Being able to take them off to use the piece for something else is clearly an advantage as far as I can see."
If the piece in question is only available printed, yes I can see that. But for very common pieces.....would anyone buy €500+ sets to get those?

That said, I can very well see another advantage, depending on the kind of sticker though. Like look at the 40650 Land Rover, those printed jumper plates for the headlights. As much as I prefer prints over stickers, had these actually been stickers, they could have been used to build it in different colors. Well, as long as they don't have a yellowish border, that is....

I’ve never really had a problem with stickers, which by the looks of it seems to put me in the minority as far as Brickset is concerned at least. That said:

“ To give them credit, the stickers that The LEGO Group use are also INCREDIBLY hard wearing.”

Haven’t found this to be 100% true. For the most part, yes,that statement holds up; I’ve got stickers on, say, Explorien sets that still look as good as the day I applied them. But then I have Mars Mission sets where the stickers have all cracked, peeled and crumbled away like dust. Don’t know if there’s a specific reason for that, like experimenting with a new type of sticker material, but it’s worth pointing out. If only because the general success in their durability makes the failures all the more notable

All I'll say is that if all parts were printed, I probably wouldn't be in this hobby any more since I only buy to MOC, I like the choice to apply a sticker or not.

Completely understand that there is more cost and complexity involved in printing. That being said, for the prices we are paying there is no excuse particularly in larger sets billed as "collector models" and costing hundreds of dollars. Let's be real, the actual material cost of what we get in the box is very low. Lego should NOT need to raise prices any more that they already are to justify extra printing costs that will decrease their insane profits by 0.0001%.

@MrBedhead said:
"The only Chinese brand that seems to print everything is Pantasy. I have not built a Pantasy set yet, but would like to (if they would release something that interests me)."
So far I have only built one set from Pantasy, so I can't say whether the quality I encountered there is always the same, but the one I built was excellent. The print quality in particular was way better than most others, including LEGO.

What I love about Cobi and the Star Trek sets from BlueBrixx is the way they go about when printing across multiple pieces. They assemble the pieces by hand on a plate or brick that is only there to keep the parts together for printing, then they get printed together, so the print is a perfect match. During assembly you remove the "helper piece" (and keep it for your spare parts bin) and put the printed pieces where they belong on the actual set. The end result looks fantastic. I just recently built the Delta Flyer and the NX-01, and both have excellent prints galore (and not a single sticker). And they are not cheap, but way cheaper than LEGO sets of comparable size. Both officially licensed too of course.

Similarly with knockoff minifigs. Yes, their legality is questionable, but not their print quality. Kopf and other manufacturers you can get on Aliexpress offer figures of outstanding print quality. They even print the back of minifig hips and legs. And their light colour prints on dark pieces are rock solid because they apparently either use more opaque ink or use several print passes. I have Mario and Luigi minifigs right in front of me that have better prints than anything I have ever seen on a LEGO minifig (not that LEGO would even do Super Mario minifigs to begin with).

the only time I ever have an issue with a sticker is when it is on a 1x1 piece, such a cheese slope or 1x1 tile. Beyond that I really do not care all that much

Having built, painted & detailed hundreds of RC cars & trucks in a past life and over 150 Gundams & other mostly "snap" style kits in the past few years from EG to MGEX & PG, I'm far less averse to stickers than the average LEGO fan. I even keep adding to a rather thick binder of old & new LEGO sticker sheets to use on MOCs. However, I do take care to sympathize with people who detest the little buggers. Comfortable, accurate sticker application is its own whole little set of skills, and not everyone either has said skills or any desire to acquire them. I think no matter what one's experience level is, though, there are some sticker LEGO situations that are not at all enjoyable.

Full-size clear backed mega-units, especially those that go on transparent parts like 1x6x5 panels, are genuine stress inducers, especially after the adhesive change that happened in the past decade. Once upon a time if you started from a corner and realized partway down one side that you got the angle wrong, you could pull it back and make another attempt, no harm no foul. Now fouling is all you get as trans-clear turns to cloud-milk. That's not to mention the guarantee that if there's one speck of dust in the air, it *will* get under that sticker, and it will be unreasonably dark & visible, and you will not get it out, ever. The "windex method" (practically treating stickers as water slide decals) is the only way to really ensure success, and again, not everyone wants or expects to need to do all of that while helping the young kids build a little Friends store at the dining room table.

Poor registration (offset die cuts) and obvious color mismatching are also real downers, especially on models that are marketed as velvet black box luxury collectible items. Similarly, the fact that LEGO specifies a generous buffer zone between stickers and the outer edges of parts is understandable for kits for kids, but many AFOLs would prefer at least an option (2nd sticker sheet please) for edge-to-edge decorations where it matters (oh hi Speed Champions racing liveries how are ya).

There was also a period in the early part of the century when the company used the world's least durable sticker media that would harden and crack into a billion sticky bits after some years with the tenacity & annoyance of fine glitter, causing lasting trauma and a persistent (to this day) fear that all LEGO stickers will suffer that same fate.

I will say I at least much prefer stickers to water slides simply due to the time investment, even though the latter produces a far more professional, seamless end result, and don't get me started on dry transfers. Sheesh, imagine LEGO with dry transfers. Nevermind, don't.

It's interesting that this article focuses on raw currency cost as a key justification for stickers over prints. In the past we've received the message from official (or former official) vectors that physical processing & space in the packaging factories was by far the biggest issue. It was stressed that every single print needs to be a new SKU, which means another bin on the racks, which means the racks themselves need to expand almost exponentially, and with that the cost of land, electricity, maintenance of the robots as they have to travel ever farther and more times per set, all multiplied by the number of distinct production facilities. Then there's also backend management of the part catalog itself. Obviously all of that can be quantified to kroner, but definitely what we've heard before had a different spin, saying the design, production prep, and printing itself was all *relatively* insignificant compared to the toll on logistics.

Looking forward to part 2.

I love the riot in the streets comment on that minifigure with the stickered torso.

I looked at some of my early sets before from the original Harry Potter line with crumbling house banners and my Legoredo fortress with little bits of rotten disintegrated stickers and almost cried. Thank god those days are over, right? Right??! :)

As far as I am concerned I am generally fine with the use of stickers, as I don't use most of them. I prefer being able to reuse bricks wherever I want it rather than them being stuck for one specific use. That may be because I am an older fan. Back in the time, there were not that many decorations (aside of yellow arrows, "control panels" and some branding tiles with the faction logo) and the models looked fine with bare bricks.

I still feel that way nowadays. Most lego sets look perfectly fine without stickers, which are used to add extra or fine details. I only use "control panels" stickers and those that are used to smoothen a color transition (e.g. a brick diagonally split, although in that case some recent models even managed diagonal color splits with bricks or tiles alone).

I must state that I am not a user of speed champion sets. I have to agree that many of these use a large number of stickers given their small size. But such a level of accuracy can't be achieved with bricks alone, and I am quite sure the price would be prohibitively expensive with stickers replaced by printed parts, relatively to their size.

My only grief regarding stickers is that sometimes the main color is slightly off the brick below it. Is there anything preventing the use of "transparent" color where the sticker is to match the brick below ? I have seen this being used on roughly 10% of stickers.

@AustinPowers said:
"What I love about Cobi and the Star Trek sets from BlueBrixx is the way they go about when printing across multiple pieces. They assemble the pieces by hand on a plate or brick that is only there to keep the parts together for printing, then they get printed together, so the print is a perfect match. During assembly you remove the "helper piece" (and keep it for your spare parts bin) and put the printed pieces where they belong on the actual set. The end result looks fantastic."

That method indeed is next level, but for starters, I'd think Lego could at least focus on their tolerances. Considering everything is done by machines, why is the alignment of prints all over the place to begin with? This bothered me most with the Singapore Skyline set, which has 2x1 printed bricks and 3x2 printed tiles that are all over the place. The biggest challenge of that set is finding pairs that best camouflage that issue. Same thing with the solar panels of the ISS.

Tio get it perfect to the very last micrometer, there's probably no alternative for such pre-assembled prints. But getting the tolerances within a mm, that shouldn't be that hard I think?

My thoughts are kind of all over the place, though at the very least I understand the point the writer made that the inclusion of a single printed cockpit canopy might result in a sets price rising by 5$.
It also doesn't help that Lego can't seem to actually put themselves into the shoes of consumers over the age of 4, as stickers for parts from builds that aren't simple tiles have basically become 4+ set exclusive.

- Brickbuilt details are better so sticker sheets are okay as most printed parts I have from old sets just kind of sit in my sorting trays never to be used because they are so specific
- If there are stickers I basically only ever apply emblems, consoles and windscreen detailing, but I am also just as likely to keep them, wanting to cut them to size for use on different parts in MOCs which obviously never happens because I have no time to moc
- Some parts absolutely require printing, no ifs. Cockpit windscreens for example are just too hard to apply with their irregular curves and angles. Something like that one UCS X-Wing canopy is torture and I am just glad that I don't buy UCS sets
- But this could also be fixed if the stickers just had the exact dimensions as the piece. So many stickers are essentially useless crap because they are too hard to apply centered or the designer does not keep in mind the gaps in the deco the use of stickers create. I really wonder what the point of this is as ONLY Lego does this, no other company
- X-Wing canopys that are printed also leave gap on the edges so they look just as unfinished as stickers, just slightly less so because stickers leave larger unprinted borders
- I also feel like things like X-Wing cockpits might be left without decoration, but then again most SW windscreens have deco so leaving the X-Wings out of that might also be seen as a style break
- Transparent sticker sheets as of 2023 (Indiana Jones fighter plane) apparently leave some kind of glue residue or bubbles now even if you apply them without lifting them off again, this is the most terrible thing that could have happened to Lego stickers
- I have some 2x2 round bricks that can't hold stickers and I also struggle to understand how this can be an issue but not other curves.
- Transparent sticker sheets of the 2010s were perfect and don't seem to ever desintegrate, they should have been made the standard
- White sticker sheets are most prone to desintegrating and have color mismatching issues when the sticker has the same color as the brick printed on it, most of them are garbage
- You can protect white stickers by just applying clear tape film over them. Though this is also cumbersome depending on the stickers dimensions, and I don't know if that's actually necessary now that Lego seems to have ditched the thin white sticker sheets which I had getting cracked in the 00s and 10s

I guess I will just keep putting them in my folder and ignore the possibility of putting them on models since I rarely build or open anything at the moment anyway.
And I will also probably keep buying unprinted windscreens to say that I plan to put custom stickers on them because the printed copies are hard to come by and I already have a bunch of unprinted ones that swapping them for prints feels stupid at this point

@theJANG said:
"It's interesting that this article focuses on raw currency cost as a key justification for stickers over prints. In the past we've received the message from official (or former official) vectors that physical processing & space in the packaging factories was by far the biggest issue. It was stressed that every single print needs to be a new SKU, which means another bin on the racks, which means the racks themselves need to expand almost exponentially, and with that the cost of land, electricity, maintenance of the robots as they have to travel ever farther and more times per set, all multiplied by the number of distinct production facilities. Then there's also backend management of the part catalog itself. Obviously all of that can be quantified to kroner, but definitely what we've heard before had a different spin, saying the design, production prep, and printing itself was all *relatively* insignificant compared to the toll on logistics."

I suspect the one detail everyone at Lego either forgets or doesn't want to mention is that the slots for printed pieces in builds have probably been eaten up by the vastly increased amount of new and unique minifigure parts each year compared to the 2000s, and that Lego likely don't want to mention that minifigs take away from the resources of printed parts in builds to prevent fandom rivalry as there are a bunch of freebuilding purists out there already.

I can see this turn into something similar to the issues in Hasbro Star Wars Actionfigure collecting space for example where the designers comment that the budget for new parts is shared across all Star Wars toys and has been twisted by for example 3 inch figure collectors into calls for the boycott of 6 and 4 inch figures and all other SW Hasbro toylines, in the hopes that their unprofitability and cancellation would just mean more new parts for Vintage Collection figures when they are simply not as profitable as these other avenues.

I don't like stickers and I'm always plessed when a set turns out to not use them, but I like even less the experience of scrolling down to the comments on Brickset and seeing historical revisionism in the name of complaining about them. I didn't build sets like 7722 and 6676 and 1682 just to stand here and listen to people scream about how in the Old Days everything was printed.

The comments sections on these articles are always a symphony of people who didn't read and people who read but decided they're the real subject experts here.

One of the key aspects of design is compromise. Accuracy vs. cost, detail vs. stability, stickers vs. prints, ease of building vs. uniform colors, and countless more. Anyone who builds a lot of MOCs is familiar with at least some of these choices that need to be made, and different MOC builders often make different choices.

I've been fortunate enough to meet a handful of Lego designers, and they are all very skilled, artistic, and passionate about their designs. They are the ones who make these decisions, and they have my trust. Would I make the same decision every single time? Of course not. But their judgement is far better than mine.

And anyone who thinks prints vs. stickers is a simple calculation like "each printed piece adds 50¢ to the price" is delusional.

This may be a hot take, but I actually PREFER stickers over printed parts. At least most of the time. Why? Because the blank part is almost always more useful and versatile in the MOCing that I do. If I bought, say, a Ninjago set, and there are some printed wedge slopes or something, Those parts are going straight to the sorting bins, and are never likely to be used ever. Now, if the same part was stickered, then I simply wouldn't put the sticker on, and I would perhaps use the blank part in a MOC.

Now, this isn't always the case. Generic stickers, like wood paneling on a tile, or a computer screen I almost always put on, and those sorts of things I would prefer if they were printed. When I put stickers on a new set I buy, it's either because I think the stickered part may prove more useful than the blank counterpart, it's some sort of Logo referencing an old Lego theme that I enjoyed, or it's because I don't plan to take apart the set anytime soon, and the detailing I think enhances the model. Though I will agree that the colour matching could be improved a lot! The colour matching is an additional reason I don't apply stickers.

Having stickers can also mean that, if there is something that I want on a sticker, I could apply it to a different part if I wanted. I have on some occasions used stickers in my MOCing, and applied them to parts they weren't designed for.

So I know I am in the minority here, but I prefer stickers 90% of the time.

@BJNemeth said:
"And anyone who thinks prints vs. stickers is a simple calculation like "each printed piece adds 50¢ to the price" is delusional."

My favourite bit of nonsense is ‘I paid x hundred dollars for this adult collector set, how dare it be so expensive and have stickers’

Does no one understand that the smaller the market and expected sales volume, the more each set has to cost to be worth making? This isn’t a choice between stickers or prints. It’s a choice between stickers or the set does not get made.

Excellent article again!

I wonder if you would be willing to talk about the production of stickers itself, as some of the complaints I often hear are about the colors of the stickers and the way they are cut.

In addition, I wonder what you have to say about the choice on when something is printed. I've noticed that on dragons the essentials for play, such as eyes, are prioritized with prints. Is that a rule for designers, or is it just courtesy to young children who might have difficulty placing stickers? Speaking of... what does playtesting say about children and stickers? I know that young children LOVE stickers, but what about slightly older children? Is the help of parents calculated in with correct sticker placement?

I myself don't really mind stickers, usually. And yes, I have experienced the horrifying sticker disintegration of the late 90s and 2000s. It was horrible.
Fortunately, since around 2010 the sets I got seemed to have become better with sticker durability. Application can be stressful, but it became doable since I learned to use a stanley knife to hold the sticker whilst applying it. Re-applying stickers even became easier. With old set the white parts would crumble if you dared to use a knife to attempt to remove a sticker, but now the stickers are thick enough that you can carefully remove them to re-apply them again.

That said... maybe I don't build enough sets new out of the box anymore to really know for certain how stickers are RIGHT NOW though.

The presence of stickers at all are a nonissue to me personally. People want small details specific to each set. Although I would love to see more general purpose prints like in the 90s, the high amount of detail expected in each set means that you often can't re-use a design made for IP A for IP B. So to me it just makes sense to provide a unique sticker sheat for all those sets. Yes, even on those 300+ euro sets. Because right now those aren't so exclusive as people would like to think. By that I mean; the amount of prints needed for those giant sets would still be excessive precisely because lego doesn't make 6 giant sets a year anymore.

@MrBedhead made some excellent points on why other building brick manufacturers can use more prints than lego usually uses. Of course, we can always hold lego to a high standard, but I don't see lego experiment to use novel production process solutions like @AustinPowers mentions. Because unfortunately, I doubt lego would see enough incentive to try and find other solutions for their prints right now. But that's just life. And business.

I like prints for their durability and for ease of building.

But I also prefer stickers in a lot of places, because most of the time I don't like all the fiddly, ugly decorations in the stickers and I would much rather leave them off. A good example of this is the Monkie Kid sets: I love the Monkie Kid Galactic Explorer spaceship, but I left off all the stickers on the outside because I think they look horrible.

My preferred solution would be to increase the use of prints, while drastically scaling back the use of decorations overall. Print all decorations, but only decorate the very most essential elements so that you don't end up with something that's more decoration than build. A good example of this is the Star Trek sets by Bluebrixx. They have lots of excellent prints, but their decorations are not overly detailed. Just the essentials. Similarly, most airplane sets by Cobi use their decorations judiciously. By contrast, Lego sticker sheets often vomit unnecessary, distracting widgets all over the place, and I leave those off.

If the main cost driver of using stickers instead of prints is manufacturing and storage complexity, then we might expect the most overpriced sets by PPP to be loaded with gorgeous prints. But they're not. Apart from their minifigures, the Hoopty and the X-Jet don't have a single set-exclusive print. What prints they do have are small, common parts reused from other themes. So that's not the full picture.

(Obviously, with the Hoopty and the X-Jet, licensing costs come into play, but that's not the full picture either. How about we just get a full explainer on why those two sets are so incredibly overpriced, as a case study?)

Thanks for another great article! It’s interesting to know that a lot of the decision comes from the designers themselves, negotiating within the parameters that they are given to create the best set they can.
That said, I’d love to see an article based on HOW those parameters and budgets get decided in the first place, even before the set is finished (assuming your NDAs allow it…!).

This is genuinely interesting and enlightening information. While I prefer prints to stickers in most cases, it is nice to get a glimpse (even a simplified one) of the logistics involved in coordinating a print job on a particular element.

Might I propose a semi-permanent facility to churn out blue and light (bluish) gray 1x2 bricks with the Classic Space logo on them in perpetuity? :)

…meanwhile all the other “regular” people that build Lego apply the stickers and move on with their day.

Lego simplified the instruction manuals and added brightly coloured, hidden, bricks to help less able builders, keeping it less stressful then add often mismatching coloured stickers which can be very stressful to apply.

I would think that most people who pay hundreds of dollars on a set are not buying it as a parts pack, and I would think most who spend those prices probably would pay a little extra for printed parts on a large coveted display set.

@poshhammer said:
" @WizardOfOss I'm uniquely qualified to talk about the stickers and prints in the Polaroid!"
Thanks for the explaination! Hadn't taken that "high use" aspect into account, that kinda makes sense indeed. Still not sure if I agree with the decision (mostly because I doubt the box will be high use in the first place), but that's a different matter.

The exposure dial though....that sounds between a choice between two evils: a print that doesn't quite work, or a sticker that won't last long. Maybe a bunch of spares would have been nice.

Have seen the set at quite tempting discounts recently, but the fact I still have a whole bunch of sets to build prevented me from getting it yet. But having just built the Creator retro camera......I kinda want more :-)

@OttoT said:
"The only thing I can say is that I hate them, that it looks horrible and that the "other" brands (who are significantly less expensive as quality of the bricks are growing) often have all bricks printed instead of stickers.
Also some sets are leaning too much on stickers to save bricks.
All that while sets are becoming more and more expensive is extreemly off putting."

As usual, first comment is, “I don’t care about any of the facts so I’m just going ignore the entire content of the article and reiterate the exact pre-existing view the article is meant to address.”

Lego would have gone bankrupt in the early 2000s if they hadn’t implemented the set-budget discipline the author discusses.

To me, stickers are becoming completely unacceptable. No matter what, they will never last as long as a print. When we're paying hundreds of dollars for a single set; longetivity should be factored in. I have sets from just a few years ago that need replacement sticker sheets, which always end up being ridiculously expensive on the aftermarket. Also worth noting that the sticker quality we get in the NA region is worse than everywhere else, at least from what I've observed. At this point, I'd genuinely take lower-quality UV printing over stickers.

The other thing that bothers me is the apparent inconsistency when deciding what gets printed and what doesn't. Why, for example, does a 10 dollar Brickheadz set receive exclusive prints, but a 300 dollar display set has a huge sticker sheet? It just doesn't make any sense to me. Ideally every set would have prints, but large display sets are especially important. The fact that the 850 dollar UCS Millennium Falcon was released with stickers baffles me.

@poshhammer

Did you ever consider just offering scans of all stickers as is being done with the instructions?
With the brittle materials, that apparently still deteriorates in 2017 that would probably fix the complaints of people that just want to be able to replace stickers after a set is out of production.

Makes no sense that there isn't a good library for them, Bricklink could fix that by just being as pedantic about sticker sheet pictures only being high resolution scans, as they are about everything else.

All I can say is that my Ferrari sets from a decade ago have all the stickers peeling off. They look terrible, and their resale value, or display value, is much reduced.

Also, I bought a couple of clone sets (Sembo) and their stickers seemed better than LEGO stickers.

@Pollywanna said:
" @OttoT said:
" and that the "other" brands (who are significantly less expensive as quality of the bricks are growing) often have all bricks printed instead of stickers."

This is *the* counterargument. All of the points in this article make total sense until you realise there are competitor brands who manage it with no problem. Of course, they don't make nearly as much profit as TLG does, which might be the real crux of the issue!"

And 100% of their production takes place in SE Asia for the cheaper-than-dirt labor rates, and that means getting the parts to the printing area is just driving across the factory. One major new bit of information from this article that I've never seen discussed before is having to ship parts internationally just to get them printed. Presumably, this would mean having to ship them _back_ (again, internationally, and possibly in both cases intercontinentally) to pack them in sets.

Competitors don't make nearly as much profit because they do a teeny, tiny fraction of the sales volume. They also haven't turned into a global operation because they do a teeny, tiny fraction of the sales volume.

@PurpleDave said:
" @Pollywanna said:
" @OttoT said:
" and that the "other" brands (who are significantly less expensive as quality of the bricks are growing) often have all bricks printed instead of stickers."

This is *the* counterargument. All of the points in this article make total sense until you realise there are competitor brands who manage it with no problem. Of course, they don't make nearly as much profit as TLG does, which might be the real crux of the issue!"

And 100% of their production takes place in SE Asia for the cheaper-than-dirt labor rates, and that means getting the parts to the printing area is just driving across the factory. One major new bit of information from this article that I've never seen discussed before is having to ship parts internationally just to get them printed. Presumably, this would mean having to ship them _back_ (again, internationally, and possibly in both cases intercontinentally) to pack them in sets.

Competitors don't make nearly as much profit because they do a teeny, tiny fraction of the sales volume. They also haven't turned into a global operation because they do a teeny, tiny fraction of the sales volume."

100% of Cobi production is in Poland, a part of the EU with pretty good wages. They have great part quality and amazing prints. See my comment above.

Having to ship parts internationally to get them printed would be very expensive. Maybe it's time to rethink that aspect of the logistics.

@poshhammer:
Stickers have been used on minifig torsos far more recently in LEGO Factory sets like 10192 and 10191; with Soccer sets like 3404, 3405, 3406 and 3407; and with NBA sets like 10121.

And if you're not familiar with the acronym, STAMP means "STicker Across Multiple Parts".

@gilgalas:
White sticker backing gives you the most consistent color for the print on the sticker. Printed bricks would also have more consistent color of print if they went back to preprinting the surface with white (as they clearly did on the old Classic Spacemen torsos), but preprinting like that requires one additional print step just to apply the backing color, and frequently you need to apply an edging color that reduces the white patch (and this would need to match the color of the part, so it typically needs to be a separate step from the actual print). Clear sticker backing is often found in cases where _one_ sticker needs to be applied to a transparent part, just like an entire sticker sheet may be produced on a metallic backing if _one_ sticker needs that quality. But they do seem to shy away from just throwing clear sticker sheets into every set.

@Anonym:
If you make the stickers the same size as the parts, first off you'll realize how not-straight even your straightest sticker application really is, as bits of the sticker will hang over the edge to prove how misalligned it is. Second, the corners of the parts don't come to a razor-sharp edge, and that chamfered edge is never going to hold down a sticker. Third, if even a tiny bit of the sticker edge isn't firmly held down, that sticker has a timer on it. The edge will collect dirt, and catch on stuff, which will lift more of the edge up, which will collect more dirt, and eventually it looks not unlike stickers applied by a toddler.

Whoever it was that came up with the Brickheadz theme did once touch on the abundance of printed minifigs, as they mentioned in an interview that they reason they could (mostly) turn out sets that had 100% prints is because they didn't have to factor a single minifig into their sets. No minifigs means they weren't losing slots to minifig parts, so they had more available for both recolors and prints. And they still ended up making a handful of sets that used stickers.

@iwybs:
And someone already mentioned that Cobi's cost is starting to rival TLG's, in spite of the massive cost savings of being located in, if not a single building, probably a single campus of buildings.

@8BrickMario:
There are heat-sensitive inks, too. You can get heat-sensitive mugs that change color when a hot beverage is poured into them. T-shirts were, at least at one time, marketed as "hypercolor", but running them through a hot wash cycle and a hot dryer cycle tends to ruin the heat-sensitive aspect.

@PurpleDave said:
"And someone already mentioned that Cobi's cost is starting to rival TLG's, in spite of the massive cost savings of being located in, if not a single building, probably a single campus of buildings."

That's just one aspect of the production costs. Lego on the other hand should have so many massive savings because of their sheer scale. I mean, making moulds is pretty expensive, but it's a lot more cost effective if you can use that mould for millions of pieces versus tens of thousands. And same thing for set design and everything that comes with it.

It's all just guessing without knowing the exact numbers, but I'm pretty sure even the best selling Cobi set doesn't even come close to the worst selling Lego set. So for them to even be at a similar price level while adhering to higher (or at least more costly) quality standards is nothing to scoff at.

I have 1980s Lego stickers that used a clear plastic that intense play and 15 years of wooden box scrape couldn’t weaken while the plastic brick weathered around it!

*So now the sticker quality is poorer but the prints can be much, much more complex.

*The inflated manufacturing capacity issue means that the demand and production has overtaken printing jig availability.

*Manufacturing costs are high but so are prices- particularly on the sets that are licenced or Icons. But these are arguably where people want more prints for the higher price and detail. Yet these are markedly higher prices than Creator sets or other themes with similar piece counts.

Therefore my consumer view (for what that’s worth!) summary would be:

Use no stickers and prints wherever possible- keep Lego generally iconic and abstract.
Yet also consolidate that deco budget to minimal prints for sets where prices are already disproportionately higher than other themes, again, licenced and Icons. Because the sticker budget is wasted where buyers don’t want to use them.

@ra226 said:
"There's also the disintegration issue. The old Sopwith Camel, 3451, was a notorious example for me, but there have been others. I generally don't mind stickers, but I do need them to not disintegrate. Other than that, there's exactly one model where the stickers were unacceptable and that was the canopy of Red Five X-Wing 10240. A huge pain to line them all up, nearly impossible to apply without bubbles, and on an expensive UCS set to boot.

As I type this, though, I'm half way through building 80054 which has 75 stickers and honestly, I'm rather enjoying the stickers. I agree with the sentiment of stickers being just part of the build, and they add so much to that set with all the busy advertisements and signs. So long as they last and my work isn't undone in 10 years, no problem here."

Watch out for the stickers on the Classic Space elevator ! I could not avoid touching the glue and it let very visible traces (althought I’m maniacly neat, use window cleaning product before applying them and brick separators to avoid teaching them…) TLG provided me with a solution for these transparent stickers : you can first cut them with cisors, them remove only half of the paper, apply the top of the sticker, them peel off the rest of the paper. It STILL is tricky though.

Also, I put all the stickers for my 10 year old son’s sets. He needs them to be exactly centered, else it’s a crisis…
The real problem for me is how they age.

I absolutely DETEST stickers. Not only do they vastly cheapen sets, I also have a weird phobia where even thinking about them make me want to wretch. Lego should not be selling sets for over £100 with stickers.

I have mixed feelings on 'em. On the one hand I don't really like applying them as a lot of them can be pretty fiddly, but on the other they're a good way to add extra fine details and unlike prints can be simply removed if you want to reuse the part for something else. I also don't particularly agree with the "looks cheap" thing, if you apply them well they blend in pretty decently from a short distance, that being said I agree the colour-matching can be DIRE and that's something Lego really need to get sorted, but that applies with prints as well, potentially moreso imo

@raven_za:
The original 2006-2008 Batman theme had extra stickers in every set that included them, which I think was all the minifig-scale stuff. Mostly it was Batman logos of varying size.

@WizardOfOss:
Nobody wants to be the first penguin off the iceberg. By that I mean that their printing capability is run to capacity. At some point, if more printed parts become needed, someone will have to propose buying another machine to expand capabilities. From a corporate standpoint, it’s easy to see why that would become necessary. From a set designer standpoint, tying to get them to agree so you can include _one_more_ print in your set just doesn’t make sense, when you can leave it to someone else who wants the same thing more desperately.

Color matching is my main complaint. I don't understand why this is such a seemingly difficult problem for Lego to solve (both prints and stickers). It just looks sooooo cheap.

Also, stickers on just a couple big pieces for sets over $500 (Venator and Razor Crest) are just reprehensible.

Durability is of course a concern, and (hopefully?) has been solved??

Happy Mother's Day all you FAFOLSwCFOLs!!

Personally I don't mind stickers in sets, although I prefer not having them. The biggest issue is when you are trying to buy parts to make an old set up and it has stickers, you usually either have to build it without them, or hope the second hand stickered parts you buy are in a decent condition, as the sticker sheets are often among the rarest parts on Bricklink

@PurpleDave said:
"Nobody wants to be the first penguin off the iceberg. By that I mean that their printing capability is run to capacity. At some point, if more printed parts become needed, someone will have to propose buying another machine to expand capabilities. From a corporate standpoint, it’s easy to see why that would become necessary. From a set designer standpoint, tying to get them to agree so you can include _one_more_ print in your set just doesn’t make sense, when you can leave it to someone else who wants the same thing more desperately."

I don't think designers are the ones that have to ask for more production capacity, regardless if we're talking prints or whatever other bit of the production process. For a company as big as Lego, there should be a department just being busy with keeping capacity up with the (estimated) demand.

But also, I would expect Lego (on a corporate level) is well aware that they aren't the only one in the business, and more importantly, that while they are still easily the biggest, the times that they were also easily the best are long gone. They should be aware that others are catching up, or in some regards are even surpassing them. And if they just keep resting on their laurels (and thus skimp on quality) , that is eventually gonna hurt them in the long run.

I think one of the questions they should ask themselves is if their flagship sets should only represent the best the company is capable of on a design level, or also on a production quality level.

The entire set is not ten times more expensive, because not every part is decorated, only a fraction of the parts in any set are ever decorated, even in the sets with the most stickers. Do better, James May. Don't put up lazy straw men like that.

@iwybs said:
"The entire set is not ten times more expensive, because not every part is decorated, only a fraction of the parts in any set are ever decorated, even in the sets with the most stickers. Do better, James May. Don't put up lazy straw men like that."

OK, let's analyse this differently then. Let's assume that we have a 1000 pieces set, with 50 stickers. If all these 50 stickers are prints, then 5% of the pieces in the set become 10 times more expensive. Let's also assume that each piece costs 1 cent to make and a sticker sheet costs 10 cents to make.

Let's look at the results of this little exercise.
1. Stickers no prints - The production cost of the set would be at 10 USD (0.01 times 1000) for the pieces and 10 cents for the stickers, so 10.10 in total.
2. All prints - In this case we get 950 pieces at 1 cents (=9.5 USD) and 50 pieces at 10 cents (5 USD), leading to a total of 14.5 USD. That is about 44% more expensive than case 1.

Now, I know these are all just numbers I (kinda) pulled out of my a**, and I also assume that this is the full production cost of LEGO, excluding all the markup, design, marketing, etc etc etc. I just wanted to show you what a tenfold increase in production cost of one option vs another option could do to the total cost of a product. You could safely assume that replacing all stickers with all prints in this example would lead to a 10% increase in the final MSRP.

Note also that if we would only have 20 stickers (2%) then the production cost would rise by 22%, in case of 10 stickers it is 11%. I hope people can see the pattern here.

@MrBedhead said:
" @iwybs said:
"The entire set is not ten times more expensive, because not every part is decorated, only a fraction of the parts in any set are ever decorated, even in the sets with the most stickers. Do better, James May. Don't put up lazy straw men like that."

OK, let's analyse this differently then. Let's assume that we have a 1000 pieces set, with 50 stickers. If all these 50 stickers are prints, then 5% of the pieces in the set become 10 times more expensive. Let's also assume that each piece costs 1 cent to make and a sticker sheet costs 10 cents to make.

Let's look at the results of this little exercise.
1. Stickers no prints - The production cost of the set would be at 10 USD (0.01 times 1000) for the pieces and 10 cents for the stickers, so 10.10 in total.
2. All prints - In this case we get 950 pieces at 1 cents (=9.5 USD) and 50 pieces at 10 cents (5 USD), leading to a total of 14.5 USD. That is about 44% more expensive than case 1.

Now, I know these are all just numbers I (kinda) pulled out of my a**, and I also assume that this is the full production cost of LEGO, excluding all the markup, design, marketing, etc etc etc. I just wanted to show you what a tenfold increase in production cost of one option vs another option could do to the total cost of a product. You could safely assume that replacing all stickers with all prints in this example would lead to a 10% increase in the final MSRP."

Thank you! With numbers like that (even if totally made up for this exercise), we can really start talking! More numbers are what we need in the eternal stickers vs prints debate. Without numbers it's just airy handwaving rhetoric all around.

Incidentally, Amazon prices for Cobi sets in the United States are about ten to twenty percent higher than prices for Lego sets of similar part count. Your wild guess for the sake of an argument doesn't seem too far off to me.

@poshhammer said:
" @Klontjes said:
"Printed pieces way more expensive? 1 cent instead of 0.1 cent is indeed way more expensive, but is it really?"

That's literally 10x more expensive. Would you pay $100 for a $10 set?

And "just buying another machine" is exactly why smaller companies are more agile for being able to get prints over larger companies. The logistics involved in putting a new machine in an already optimised, massive and incredibly complex operation is far more work than you would think to "just" add another.

Does it suck that The LEGO Group is now too big that it runs into these issues? Possibly. But that is the reality, and this idea of "they're a big company so they can just do it" which a lot of people on Brickset seem to think is the case don't know how big companies actually operate."

Like someone pointed out, not every part is printed. How much is the actual production cost of $10 set. A dollar? Two? I don't know, but adding ten cents to the cost doesn't explode the selling price.

Four printed tiles in the UCS Venator would add what to the actual cost if production? Enough to not print them, but that's just so silly.

And complex? Of course it is complex, way more than I can grasp, but they poop out new parts like a rabbit, adding way more complexity with every part, but printing them is too complex? I just don't buy that.
You wrote that time on the limited number of printing machines was limited, so adding another would indeed solve that. Maybe complex as well, but see before.

They can do it if they want, but they don't want to. If consumer behaviour shifts they might have to buy those other printing machines and will need to make those logistics even more complex. If Lego keeps selling like they do, they have no reason to change. And maybe it is just not as big a problem for most of their customers.

I don't pretend to know how big companies work, but their deciscions are always based on money. Do I like that? Usually no, but I can protest with my wallet (and a bit on Brickset)

@MarkingX said:
"On the topic of printing why is there a decline in the quality of prints, especially on such as minifigure torso. It wasn't always like this. An example I can think of is the CMF Buzz Lightyear compared to the later ones. Is it a way of TLG cost cutting?"

Oh boy, print quality as distinguished from print count ... There's a whole other can of worms that needs to be explained by someone in the know!

Another insightful article, @poshhammer . And happy to read I'm not the only one who hates stickers on LEGO bricks with a passion.

I totally get stickers with LEGO Friends sets, where (I assume) the demographic loves stickers and isn't so concerned with building tiny details out of bricks. They just want it to look fun and colorful. If that means kids get a few extra bricks or a figure or an animal: fine.

For sets aimed at an older demographic, especially 18+ sets, LEGO should do away with all stickers. Most of these sets are bought purely for esthetics and rarely, if ever, taken apart, so one poorly applied or badly aged sticker can totally ruin the look of a set, because they stick out like sore thumb. Also, with the premium prices these sets demand, there should be enough budget for doing prints. Or just leave out a random side build that doesn't really add something.

A great example is the Optimus Prime set. Some bricks are printed, while others aren't. First off, I think the hip decoration could've easily been achieved by tiles. Secondly, was it really necessary to add an Energon cube? I would've rather seen that budget allocated to all prints, especially considering the Energon cubes we see in the source material are much bigger in scale anyway.

Same goes for the Medieval Market: lose the tree (which isn't that great to begin with) and the stickers and switch them for all prints and maybe an extra small animal. Or extra roof texture, because it looks a bit half-baked.

I'd argue that if you can print a piece and it's necessary for a set's overal (external) esthetic, especially for sets for older demographics, that should always be the preferred option. If decorations are optional and don't take away anything from the set if they're not present, you can opt for stickers. If I want extra bricks, I can buy them myself, but I can't buy printed parts.

I never apply stickers to my sets, and if a set is too reliant of stickers for its general look, I simply won't buy it. A LEGO set is not the same a model kit, which is often pretty advanced and requires a different skill set than putting together bricks.

@MrBedhead said:
" @iwybs said:
"The entire set is not ten times more expensive, because not every part is decorated, only a fraction of the parts in any set are ever decorated, even in the sets with the most stickers. Do better, James May. Don't put up lazy straw men like that."

OK, let's analyse this differently then. Let's assume that we have a 1000 pieces set, with 50 stickers. If all these 50 stickers are prints, then 5% of the pieces in the set become 10 times more expensive. Let's also assume that each piece costs 1 cent to make and a sticker sheet costs 10 cents to make.

Let's look at the results of this little exercise.
1. Stickers no prints - The production cost of the set would be at 10 USD (0.01 times 1000) for the pieces and 10 cents for the stickers, so 10.10 in total.
2. All prints - In this case we get 950 pieces at 1 cents (=9.5 USD) and 50 pieces at 10 cents (5 USD), leading to a total of 14.5 USD. That is about 44% more expensive than case 1.

Now, I know these are all just numbers I (kinda) pulled out of my a**, and I also assume that this is the full production cost of LEGO, excluding all the markup, design, marketing, etc etc etc. I just wanted to show you what a tenfold increase in production cost of one option vs another option could do to the total cost of a product. You could safely assume that replacing all stickers with all prints in this example would lead to a 10% increase in the final MSRP.

Note also that if we would only have 20 stickers (2%) then the production cost would rise by 22%, in case of 10 stickers it is 11%. I hope people can see the pattern here."

Though clearly a hyperbolic example, I think it contextually shows the issue. The variances in cost, though, would not have a 1:1 impact on sell price. LEGO (and its IP partners, where applicable) set the expected price points. Designers are then tasked to design a set to the applicable parameters for that price point. They are held to “rules” such as how many “new” things they can include.

These rules were likely implemented 20 years ago and are draconian in nature as a self governing feature to keep LEGO cost control from once again drifting. And any change for a single set would likely have an exponential downstream impact for an organization this complex, this large, this (currently) fine tuned.

The concept seems solid, if not exaggerated. We probably have to look at in a more macro level, though.

-Let’s say that they expect to make 1,000,000 of this hypothetical battle pack for let’s say just the U.S. market and thus is the only product this year. so expenses can’t be shared.
-Let’s also say that there is no ship/debit, profit sharing, or other complex distribution relationships nor does LEGO sell direct. Once they deliver the product to its distributors, they’re out and distributors are on their own.
-MSRP for battle packs is now $20.00 (ugh)
-Production cost of each is slated at $5.00, for example. It’s probably lower.
-They book all 1,000,000 to Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc at varying costs but let’s say $14 on average.
-Total cost to build for LEGO is $5,000,000
-Total Shipping/Logistics for LEGO is $800,000
-Total indirect costs for LEGO is $1,000,000
-License partner gets 30%, for example
-Total revenue for LEGO is $14,000,000
-Total profit for LEGO is $3,000,000
-Total gross profit margin for LEGO is 21%.

Any changes to cost would directly impact LEGO’s profit margin. Not Amazon’s. Not Disneys. That is unless LEGO passes those costs onto its distributors. And if they did, the distributors would want to see an equivalent increase in MSRP to help protect their own margins. But you’ve got to be very careful with MSRP, to not push the consumer too fast, too hard. Consumers are okay with certain price points. $20.99 could destroy sales while $19.99 could be just acceptable enough.

The reality is that LEGO has reached a certain level of profitability internally and that any movement…

… to change its internal processes like more prints would impact that profitability unless they feel the market could absorb additional costs. And I think we all agree that LEGO is already pushing the boundaries with us on what we’ll reasonably pay.

Could LEGO simply accept slightly less than record profit margins for the sake of quality and customer satisfaction? Sure. Will they?

@Pollywanna said:
" @OttoT said:
" and that the "other" brands (who are significantly less expensive as quality of the bricks are growing) often have all bricks printed instead of stickers."

This is *the* counterargument. All of the points in this article make total sense until you realise there are competitor brands who manage it with no problem. Of course, they don't make nearly as much profit as TLG does, which might be the real crux of the issue!"

Most of those competitor brands also don't bother with R&D'ing their own new pieces. Whenever TLG comes up with a new piece, it just gets copied. But who knows how much time and money went into not only coming up with the piece, but also designing it so that it's up to code. I'd imagine just copying off new pieces frees a lot of ressources that can be put into printing instead. Less dedication to material safety, to tight tolerances and to consumer research also makes life a lot easier for most competitor brands.

But I'm simply speculating here. @poshhammer, I'd love to see your two pence on the matter someday!

If the choice is between more prints or more new molds, I would rather have more new molds. I'd just prefer it if that choice didn't have to be made.

@FlitzerMitDerPizza said:
"Most of those competitor brands also don't bother with R&D'ing their own new pieces. Whenever TLG comes up with a new piece, it just gets copied."
While not untrue, this is less and less the case. Cobi makes tons of unique pieces, and even the Chinese brands do this more and more. And we already had a few cases where Lego downright copied their pieces...
(and sent a piece of marketing BS to New Elementary about the R&D process...)

As for the argument that other companies are smaller thus can easier change their production process.....maybe, but at the same time for them that one extra machine wille be pretty huge investment. I mean, let's say a printing machine costs a million bucks (and yes, I'm probably still very much on the low end....). Pocket change for Lego, but not for Cobi or most other brands. It's hard to find conclusive data, but the highest revenue I can find from them (doesn't mention year though) is €53 million. No matter the exact numbers, the investments they have done to move from partially stickers to exclusively prints must have been a pretty siginificant chunk of their revenue.

I'm not saying Lego should do only prints, in many cases stickers are justifiable, even in expensive sets. But when you're making billions of profit yet have to skimp on quality (especially on flagship sets) because of production capacity, I do question the choices the company is making.

@PurpleDave , I get that. But thing is, it seems to me that Lego still wants to keep growing. That should also mean keep investing in capacity to do so. Those are not decisions to be made by the designers nor that scheduling department, but by the higher-ups. Well, at least if "Only the Best" still has any meaning to them, that is.

An interesting comparrison is also the car industry, which in recent years had to deal with a semiconductor shortage. And as a result in some cases had to limit the options available on some cars, or disable certain functions. But take Mercedes for example, which models do you think they prioritized in those situations: cheap models like the A-Class, or top of the line models like the S or SL?

If we should consider producing more printed pieces practically impossible, then I'd say Lego better look at their entire product portfolio how to distribute those instead of religiously sticking to this strict system.

@WizardOfOss said:
" @PurpleDave , so you're basically saying that along the line there will be no one who actually cares about the quality of the product, but only about meeting their own targets? That would be truly sad...."

What? No, I said no such thing. If you legitimately need more prints than you can get approved for, and it becomes a persistent issue, a good lead designer will have no problem running that up the flagpole for you. And if somewhere a few levels above you, someone is hearing this same problem from multiple lead designers, that would demonstrate that it’s not just a case of one set designer who can’t work around limitations that everyone else can manage (an indication that the set designer may not be a good fit for the company, or may need better training).

But as @poshhammer said, it’s not just a matter of plunking down another pad printer. There may not be room for it in any of the print shops. It may require expanding a building. It may require breaking ground on a new building (and then you have to justify opening another building when all you need is space for one pad printer). It may require expanding the Cathedral to get more storage “locations”. If it involves adding this printer to a campus that’s not already full of them, you have to figure out which parts to print there, and how to get the unprinted parts there and the finished parts back. There’s the question of how much of the new capacity do you put in use right away. Do you max it out, or hold onto a bit of reserve capacity?

Like I mentioned before, increasing capacity is just one option, the slow but long term one. At moments prioritizing one set over another could be another one. But from what I understood, that's not happening either. And probably other ways we can't even think of. But instead just stick with the status quo. So if a €650 UCS set is plastered with ugly stickers, so be it. Nothing that can be done about it.

I fully understand it's not all that easy. I just can't shake the feeling that that is used as an excuse to not want to solve obvious issues. For a company that claims "Only The Best is Good Enough", I think that's not a great mindset.

I have mixed feelings about stickers. Those on my Technic Williams F1 have completely deteriorated, for which I would expect TLG to provide replacements, being so focused on quality.
For Speed Champions, I find it quite distracting, but then the good thing is that often the stickers can be applied so that the stickered brick will nicely align with neighbouring bricks, colourwise.

The profit margins for LEGO are so high that more printed pieces should be included wherever possible, imho. Pricing (Hoopty, anyone?) often seems like an afterthought anyway.

A spare sticker sheet with every set would be very welcome.