Teal We Meet Again
Posted by Huw,
You may have heard the phrase "Mark Stafford Killed Teal", referring to LEGO designer Mark's choice of colour for an Exo-Force set (8115 Dark Panther) in 2008: He could choose purple or teal (which LEGO call Bright Bluish Green) and whichever he didn't pick would be culled from the palette.
As it turns out his decision didn't kill teal at all but merely put it into a ten year hibernation, because it's made a reappearance in several 2018 sets including, most noticeably, in 10260 Downtown Diner.
Does its resurrection mean that another colour has been displaced? The answer is, well, I'm not going to say but instead direct you to The Rambling Brick where Richard there has written an excellent article in which he examines pictures of next year's sets and marks colours off on the official 2016 palette to find out.
(The rather splendid article title has been shamelessly nicked from Richard...)
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Great article!
That article's a tense read. I got legitimately worried LEGO had done away with Sand Green for a second.
Has it been confirmed that this new teal is the same as the old teal or will it be another gray or new/old dark red difference?
I somewhat guess that it really could be having the same colour ID but somehow a slightly altered name such as had happened with 154 New Dark Red. It may also have some slight differences in shade and consistency I am somewhat afraid due to the new colour mixing stuff LEGO did since around 2010, but nowhere near the level of old grey vs. light bluish grey and similar colors from the big 2004 change. One should note that teal (107 Bright Bluish Green) did in fact appear in a few bizarre occasions in 2014 and 2015 - Simpsons' Krusty the Clown used it as an ink color (compare it yourself, it's a perfect match to the old plastic) and Edna Krabappel used it as a color for her textile skirt (which is even officially confirmed by the inventory). Anyways - superhyped for it's return :D
EDIT: Anyone remembers that the same was somewhat happening to another color?
Tan ("5- Brick Yellow") first appeeared in 1981 Fabuland sets and remained there until Fabulands cancellation in 1989 which also marked the end for many of it's exclusive colors like Tan. However, 7 years later, Tan slowly crawled back into the color palette with the baseplates found in Western sets. It took till 1998 and the Adventurers theme for the first bricks to appear in Tan and to make it the fairly common color it is still today.
Cool Color! I didn't even realize it was in Lego sets since I didn't start Legos till around 2010. Interesting Article.
Wishful thinking but I'd really like the Old Grey and Old Dk Grey colours back. Since they died I've not really bought any sets to part out new...
@spanky74: I've seen people from Legoland Model Shops confirm that it is indeed the same color with the same name and number.
After good memories of the late 90s and early 00s with Life on Mars and a Rock Raiders, I kind of hadn't realised the colour had gone - perhaps because there was a proliferation of other shades of green, blue and purple instead.
Seems like Mark was put in a pretty difficult situation at the time - who'd have thought Dark Panther was so important as a set as to merit such a significant decision - Exo Force was cancelled after that wave - and we all (well fans of 2006-08) miss it!
Excellent article. Very very thorough analysis with the colors.
Oh, that teal color is so awesome! I hope I can get some of those sets with that color next year. And I got to say, what a great set that Downtown Diner is to "reintroduce" us to teal.
Guess BL calls this Dark Turquoise?
never owned any sets with it but im glad they're bringing it back. teal really is a nice color.
... my gosh, I miss Exo-force. I loved that line.
Zordboy, that line was great. A weak second year doomed it but boy was it a lot of fun. I think it would do great today with a TV show backing it.
I'm hoping deal makes a bigger comeback, it is one of my favorite colors and I thought the diner was just one of the azure shades (which I also love).
What about the copper color in the Vermillion Ninjago sets? Is that still around?
I agree with SnakeCharmer, this years small resurgence of copper metallic is a sign of things to come, that is that TLG is able to afford additions to its colour palette.
EDIT: Also Mark Stafford should've chosen teal. Purple would have been reintroduced faster simply due to Joker's suits for DC themes.
So glad it’s back! Teal appeared solely during my Dark Years so my collection is sorely lacking it, having only picked up a few parts in this color on the secondary market in recent years.
Looking forward to adding more of it to my collection. Great article!
I've said before and I'll say it again... I wish they would've released the Mercedes AMG F1 set in this teal instead of the dark green. It matches do much better. I'm glad they've brought it back.
Copper is still around. Check out this video containing a physical current palette:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGMzQXevSDQ&feature=youtu.be&t=1m19s
There are still some really nice colours used in certain lego sets I, e Azure blue, magenta and the light yellow used on heartlake high, so the teal being retired for a while wasn't a big loss but it does look nice on the new creator diner so let's see if it's come back is a good thing in more than just one set,
as exo force isn't made anymore, I'm interested to see what other themes the colour will fit in with.
Sounds more like Mark Stafford Saved Purple
Now we can have a more accurate Greedo!
As I'm working with something that could use some new parts in this color, the timing couldn't be better.
^^ you mean we can have a more accurate one again. His first appearance was in teal: https://brickset.com/minifigs/sw110/greedo
Back in my day, we had six colors...AND WE LIKED IT!
I can second @PDelahanty: when I started playing with Lego, there was red, yellow, blue, black, white, light grey, dark grey, brown and green. Nine colours, and some of them like dark grey or brown used only for very few pieces.
How times have changed...
I'd love to see SAND RED come back. It was maybe a bit off but combined with tan it made for some lovely looking brick buildings. Maybe something a bit closer to the dull pinkish-red of new housebricks.
Indeed I'd also like sand red to return.
Especially for slope parts: I find that color a nice fit for roofs.
But I'm happy that dark turquoise is back, I was really missing it (and parts in that color weren't already very common), it is one of my favourite colors... with sand green (so as Ladondorf said, that other article was a tense read :D)
Teal (or Dark Turquoise) only means on thing to me: Rock Raiders.
for a bit I thought that's why we had so much sand green this year, so we can stock up on it before it's gone.
I have collected teal parts as they were available on bricklink or ebay so I am excited that they will be easier to acquire. It goes really well with the friends and elves sets. I was happy to see copper come back for Ninjago. As I look through the palette https://www.flickr.com/photos/126975831 @N07/page1
Many of the old colors were inconsistent in there shading, so I don't see many of them coming back ever. I would like a different red made, sort of a rust red. I wish that Lego would use rare colors in each set as the marker pieces that help kids build sets. Right now they use red, blue or yellow. But if they used rare colors like sand green, dark red, dark blue etc. it would be easier to get these colors.
Whenever I see teal LEGO I am reminded of the TYCO super blocks space adventure bucket (with a motorized AT-ST type thing) that I was given as a kid to supplement my LEGO sets. They had a lot of useful parts that LEGO would eventually incorporate in some form - cheese slopes, innovative SNOT pieces, hemisphere windshields, etc, and the color scheme was grey, teal, and light purple - the latter two being colors LEGO was years away from offering. So my association with teal is always "knock off" (not necessarily a negative in this one case). Anyone else?
Teal was so rare that I didn't actually realize it was discontinued... shame on me for that because it's one of my favorite colors. I'm glad to see it returning... let the Rock Raider MOCs commence!
Awesome. I love the color bingo article. Inspires me to do some knolling color art!
Teal/dark turquoise has always been a favorite color of mine. Some random pieces include slopes, helmet (Jack Stone maybe), a few printed pieces if I remember correctly....but it has been a while. I saw the new diner colors and was thrilled to see the use of teal because it is a vibrant, deep, passionate and happy color reminding me of the ocean and brilliant sunrises and sunsets. I vote for all pastel colors after decades of basic red, white, blue, green, yellow and black. Dull colors for me.
(All of the sand colors have been in my collection for over a decade with green, blue, red and purple being magnificent shades in my book. They can bring them back in force any day, and I will stand up and scream Hallelujah!)
I wish LEGO would bring back the colour "Brick Red" for normal bricks.
In past only used in the Modulex-series, but if they could bring back the cousin "Brick Yellow" (tan) in 1998, so why not "Brick Red" in 2018!
LEGO, if you read this, make a big house in "Brick Red", just like you did the Parisian Restaurant in olive green.
We just need one set:-)
Love this color, especially for BIONICLE parts.