LEGO Ideas launches fan vote for a new LEGO book aimed at AFOLs

Can the winner be combined with the Ideas Pop-Up Book?

@Zander said:
"Would like to vote but can't. To vote you have to have your LEGO and Ideas accounts linked. But LEGO has made it impossible to do that."

I emailed them, and they sorted mine out - two different accounts, but same email, so were not auto linked apparently.

I loved that they asked for specific info AFOL's might be interested in learning. I have lots of questions about how the company works and I just asked a lot of them. All the answers might be secret squirrel stuff that the company has to keep quiet about though:)

Definitely Lego museum would be great write up

If it is indeed three separate ideas, and from the page that describes the three it sure sounds like it, I would like all of them.
I mean, it's only books. Can't be that cost prohibitive to make all three. Companies like No Starch Press or DK produce lots of titles - and at reasonable prices too.

Who doesn’t think that if “The Secret Life of LEGO Bricks” or “The LEGO Brick Museum” is the winning title that the content will be about 100 bricks? For that reason alone, I am voting for one of these two, and likely the former.

I will never forget reading in Blocks Mag. that he does aerial silks for "exercise"

@Theoderic - thanks for sharing!

Now I want all 3 books...

@Zander said:
"Would like to vote but can't. To vote you have to have your LEGO and Ideas accounts linked. But LEGO has made it impossible to do that. So LEGO's IT is preventing me and others from participating in this and other Ideas projects. Very frustrating! >:~( "

Why can't you link yours? It has never been a problem for me? Is there some gateway setting that your device blocks?

I might have a slight preference of importance of the books, but I would quite like all three. I definitely want two of them. I don't want to have to choose between them.

@Rimefang said:
" @Zander said:
"Would like to vote but can't. To vote you have to have your LEGO and Ideas accounts linked. But LEGO has made it impossible to do that. So LEGO's IT is preventing me and others from participating in this and other Ideas projects. Very frustrating! >:~( "

Why can't you link yours? It has never been a problem for me? Is there some gateway setting that your device blocks?"

It's not me, it's LEGO itself. Both accounts use the same e-mail address and both accounts are old; the Ideas one was originally my Cuusoo account. That may have something to do with it.

It is a known problem, just one that LEGO chooses not to fix unless, like @tomchiverton (above), you contact LEGO. I suppose that is what I will have to do.

@Zander said:
" @Rimefang said:
" @Zander said:
"Would like to vote but can't. To vote you have to have your LEGO and Ideas accounts linked. But LEGO has made it impossible to do that. So LEGO's IT is preventing me and others from participating in this and other Ideas projects. Very frustrating! >:~( "

Why can't you link yours? It has never been a problem for me? Is there some gateway setting that your device blocks?"

It's not me, it's LEGO itself. Both accounts use the same e-mail address and both accounts are old; the Ideas one was originally my Cuusoo account. That may have something to do with it.

It is a known problem, just one that LEGO chooses not to fix unless, like @tomchiverton (above), you contact LEGO. I suppose that is what I will have to do. "

I had two accounts at one point (still not sure how that even happened), but Lego wasn't able to merge them. They could only delete one of them. Which is how I lost my Lego Ideas Cuusoo pioneer badge :/

@LusiferSam said:
"Sounds interesting. Personally I'd rather wait for Gary Istok's unofficial history series."

LOL... thanks for the vote of confidence @LusiferSam. I don't know much about these book choices, so I can't give much input. However, it appears that these will be another "coffee table" LEGO book that are in such abundance (such as all the DK Publishing LEGO books) and just give little clues about the bigger picture of the LEGO universe. They do sound interesting though. I personally would like to know about the choices used in a "100 LEGO pieces" book. ;-)

"Developed with input from a group of AFOL “ambassadors,” each of the three book ideas is a different spin on showcasing the extraordinary variety of LEGO elements, from monorail tracks..."
"They can even suggest favourite LEGO elements they’d like to see included in the book."

I'd like to suggest that the elements included with the book are a full loop of Monorail Track. Most AFOLs probably haven't had the chance to experience how extraordinary they were.

I hope this a case similar to what they did with those old Star Wars sets or what Minecraft does with the Biome Votes. Have the winner of the vote come out first, then release the runner up a few months/years later, then wait a while and release last place. That way all get made but the one with the most demand gets the spotlight first.

So if I'm understanding the blogposts right it seems to be:

The LEGO Brick Museum: A chart of every single LEGO element
LEGO History in 100 Bricks: A showcase of a handful of particularly useful elements
The Secret Life of LEGO Bricks: A look into the production process of elements

As an AFOL, I'm very keen on entering Lego design teams secrets, processes and so on. But we have already seen TV broadcasts, books, Utube videos which relate what is to be seen when you visit the Lego house or have the chance to go to the factory or The Vault. So even if I have voted for it, I wonder if a book about the "secret life of a Lego brick" would REALLY bring and learn us new "secrets" and things. I mean we all know that TLC has secrets and if unveils some of them, none of the "real" ones will ever be revealed. They show what they want, and what they want only. Which is of course their absolute right. And I appreciate the fact that they ask their fan base for such an idea.

@LegoRobo
@Theoderic

Thanks!

I want to see if they add a lot of sets that never made it pass concept or final production (V-22 should have been here) and if possible see the ton of SW concepts that weren't greenlight.

@CCC said:
"These are not just books, these are LEGO books with your name printed in. I wonder if they print everyone's name in each book or just your own name in your own book. Although from the descriptions, they could well all be the same book with different title."

To me the descriptions sound like three distinctly different types of content.

And about the names of everyone who pre-orders the book printed on the back?
Wow, that of course is totally amazing - not.
And anyway, this could also be done if all three were produced. Nothing to stop them from printing the names on all three. Or how's that for a novel idea - those that pre-order title 1 get their names printed on title 1,those who pre-order title 2 get their names printed on title 2 and so on. I still don't see the need to choose. Give us all three and be done with it. Who needs their names printed on a book anyway? Fake sense of exclusivity?

saw the picture and, not gonna lie, i thought for a splitsecond that they were making a lego wii set too lmao

I can imagine plenty of use with the museum. That’s my vote.

The descriptions sounds pretty much the same on the blog, but perhaps with a slightly different spin for each. All about the history and process of lego elements. Which is understandable given that they are coming from the expertise of the same author. I imagine the bulk of the content would be the same anyway. Not to say that they don't sound like an interesting read though!

@Andhe said:
"The descriptions sounds pretty much the same on the blog"
We must have been reading two different kinds of blog. The one that is linked above describes three totally different contents.

1) History of the LEGO elements (entire range), not just bricks by the way.

2) The 100 most important LEGO pieces in terms of significance for new building techniques, importance in LEGO history etc.

3) LEGO bricks from a technical standpoint. Design, prototyping, production etc.

To me at least that sounds like very different topics. But maybe that's just me.

Interesting idea and I like the clean look. Though what caught my eye right away was the photoshop job (esp. the type) on the cover art.

I went for the secret life and when they asked me why, I said to learn how they decided who gets printed and who gets stickered.

@tkatt said:
""Developed with input from a group of AFOL “ambassadors,” each of the three book ideas is a different spin on showcasing the extraordinary variety of LEGO elements, from monorail tracks..."
"They can even suggest favourite LEGO elements they’d like to see included in the book."

I'd like to suggest that the elements included with the book are a full loop of Monorail Track. Most AFOLs probably haven't had the chance to experience how extraordinary they were."

"Included in the book" =\= "Included with the book"

Basically you can influence what bricks will have articles written about them. Probably there won't be any physical bricks accompanying the book.

@LusiferSam:
I mean, it's your free choice, but I wouldn't hold my breath. There was a time when he was producing copies of his history and there weren't any problems. He even stopped by an event where my LUG was displaying, and he had copies on CD to sell (along with some rare vintage parts). Not long after that, however, things kind of imploded for him on Bricklink, as he was selling copies of his CD and not actually shipping them. I don't remember much about the specifics, but they banned him from selling there, and I barely hear his name come up anymore. I think I saw a post under his name sometime in the last year, so he may still be around, but he's not getting any younger, and with the pandemic it's anybody's guess. All that aside, he really does have one of the best working knowledges of the early history of the LEGO System that you're likely to find outside of Billund, but I think he's been overwhelmed by the flood of new elements that have been released in the last 20 years. I know that he had zero working knowledge of the Bionicle system the last time I interacted with him, and it didn't sound like he was interested in correcting that at the time.

@tomchiverton:
No, from the blog descriptions, I can see these being entirely different books. Sure, there could be elements that would feature in all three, but here's an example of how differently these would play out for the most famous one:

The LEGO Brick Museum would probably have an entire chapter on the evolution of the 2x4 brick. This one basic element has had more in-depth study than any other, largely due to the fact that there seem to be several times more variants (CA vs ABS, slotted vs non-slotted, hollow vs tubed, regular vs chromed, plus all of the various test bricks produced by other companies like Bayer, and the famous patent sprue that features a few alternative designs like the X-bottom (which we've seen used on older 2x2 round tiles) or the bar-bottom (similar to the underside of 1x bricks).

LEGO History in 100 Bricks will almost certainly feature the 2x4 brick, but with less focus on the variations and evolution and more on the fact that it's the founding element of an ever-growing system.

The Secret Life of Bricks will probably have very little focus on the 2x4 brick. Even if you're not aware of the fairly extensive public knowledge surrounding its introduction and evolution, it's not hard to look at it and determine why it's important. There also aren't really any crazy techniques that rely on the 2x4 brick (though there are a few that are compatible with it).

Please!!!! I would did love an official book for adults!!! Official because of the access to the archives and adults because the dk ones are just more so picture books and text explaining each picture