Lego Rolls Out a Collection of Wooden Home Accessories | Hacker News Reader

Lego Rolls Out a Collection of Wooden Home Accessories

design-milk.com

51 pointsrobin_reala80 comments

This move says to me that Lego, like many companies today, doesn’t want to position itself in the market as a mere purveyor of a good or service, but rather as a “lifestyle brand.”

They don’t want customers buying Lego stuff just for the enjoyment it provides, but because they are a “Lego person” and it’s part of their identity. Makes for stronger brand loyalty and promotes brand advocacy.

I believe you are correct. Though, these moves often have the opposite effect on me. Especially with the name plastered over every object.

"Lifestyle brands" are an absolutely confounding concept to me... didn't the west spend the 00s with names like "Abercrombie" and "Hollister" plastered on everything before consumers collectively realized being a billboard sucked and they moved onto a few years of simplicity? Now we're going back to that trend, except there is even less relationship between the logo and clothing/decorations being offered?

I always laughed when I saw people wearing “Hollister”, the brand name of my grandpa’s colostomy supplies, which got burned into my retinas as a mildly traumatized neurodiverse 4-yr-old in the early 70s.

It's also the name of a not-very-exciting town in California (Gilroy's less-glamorous neighbor).

Apparently it is “actually” named after a 1920s SoCal lifestyle pioneer they invented. So much for authenticity.

As for Hollister, CA, Wikipedia says:

Trademark conflict with Hollister, California

According to an article in the Los Angeles Times in April 2009, Abercrombie & Fitch has threatened merchants and residents of Hollister, California who want to use the name "Hollister" on clothing. The article quotes David Cupps, general counsel for Abercrombie & Fitch: "If they try, they would get a call and much more."[32]

Also, according to the article: "The controversy over the name heated up in 2006 when Stacey Crummett, chief executive of Hollister-based Rag City Blues, added the word "Hollister" to the label of her vintage bluejeans. In response to her trademark registration application, Abercrombie & Fitch attorneys sent her a letter alleging she was violating the company's trademark and threatening to sue." Crummett subsequently withdrew the application.[33]

"Even students at Hollister's San Benito High School wonder if they are violating Abercrombie & Fitch's trademark by wearing shirts emblazed with the school nickname, the Hollister Haybalers."

"Hollister City Atty. Stephanie Atigh insists that Abercrombie & Fitch cannot sue if locals are simply putting the town name on clothes to identify the geographic location."[32]

Turns out the ostomy supply company has hollister.com whereas for the clothing you have to go to hollisterco.com

So they totally knew about it and called it Hollister anyway. That's funny right there!

Not all brands out massive logos on things - that’s not an inherent part of lifestyle brands.

Maybe, but this isn’t a major market move, it’s just a small number of boutique items which won’t be produced in large numbers.

There was a time when Lego did everything (I have some board games and they are fun!) and it ended almost in a bankruptcy: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-lego-made-a-huge-turnaro...

However the landscape today is much different: Lego pricing is just wow, the sets are way too expensive. Lego has serious competition: Cada and Mould King offers very nice original and affordable sets. So if Lego loses the focus again it can be worse than last time going near bankrupt.

As having hundreds Lego sets at home I will not buy any other gadgets with their merchandising.

>However the landscape today is much different: Lego pricing is just wow, the sets are way too expensive.

The high pricing is part of the brand image as well. It gives buyers the feeling their buying something premium that could also be an investment, more of a collector's item instead of just a toy, similar to a Rolex watch, which could appreciate in value over time and maybe sell it later for more than they originally paid.

Interesting, is there a market for second hand Lego sets ?

There is people making a living from said second hand market.

Hell yeah. Some rare older sets that aren't sold anymore can go several times their original price, especially in mint condition.

I guess Lego saw the huge markups on the second hand market and thought they were selling themselves short and so decided to capitalized on it themselves instead of the sellers, by raising prices and focusing more on limited edition sets with various IP branding partnerships, turning what was once a kid's toy into a collector's item or even a potential investment opportunity.

It's just corporations being corporations.

>buying something premium that could also be an investment, more of a collector's item

Am I the only one getting fed up with this mentality? What's the point buying toys and not use them?

How are you supposed to create memories and have fun if you are buying to bank on it later?

Because the logic will be: if a big part sees this as an easy flip, then no one uses it, enjoys it, has fun and creates memories with it, and down the line you'll have less people to sell this to.

There are two groups of collectibles at the moment imo - highly speculative ones, where every one thinks they will get rich from hoarding and flipping shit, and true collectibles that were played with and have a solid fan base, where people used the products and have an emotional attachment to the brand.

They are rare because people played with them (broke parts, lost others, trashed them), and very few people chose to not use the sets (most of them out of love for the brand, not to flip it down the line - and they were kids, not adults).

If a big part is seeing this as investment vehicles, then they aren't rare - they are just perceived to be rare. If kids aren't building memories around it today, how will they crave it down the line when they're grown ups?

Anyway, Lego is banking on it alright! Good on them.

>How are you supposed to create memories and have fun if you are buying to bank on it later?

I don't think the Lego corporation cares about what people do with their Lego sets, as long as people keep buying more sets and at higher prices.

Same how Nvidia doesn't care that their GPUs end up in the hands of miners and scalpers, instead of gamers to enjoy, create memories and have fun.

All corporations have the same purpose, to generate value for their shareholders, using whichever way generates more revenue.

I disagree, I do think they care about what people do with their Legos, to the point of having the whole etiquette around how to properly use Lego parts.

But to the point of caring if people are actually building their limited edition sets? After the purchase people are free to do what ever they want with it, and like I said, they are making bank on it.

If they wanted to throw panic they just had to re-release limited edition sets.

>Same how Nvidia doesn't care that their GPUs end up in the hands of miners and scalpers, instead of gamers to enjoy, create memories and have fun.

And that's the fuel of change, AMD could have been capturing gamers but they're too focused on CPUs. But Intel got a taste of what it feels like not caring about consumers.

Maximizing shareholder value is a short term strategy for B2C, usually doesn't go well. Shareholder value is a consequence from generating value to consumers, not the other way around.

> I don't think the Lego corporation cares about what people do with their Lego sets, as long as people keep buying more sets and at higher prices.

Strongly disagreeing. Lego clearly is very interested in curating the brand. They also didn’t buy BrickLink without reasons. Lego wants to control and shape the entire ecosystem even outside of where they make money.

> Lego pricing is just wow, the sets are way too expensive

How do you measure that? I'm sure there are some overpriced sets but overall the set prices don't seem particularly excessive to me.

> Lego has serious competition: Cada and Mould King

They might be fun for adults, but they are absolutely awful for children. Even as an adult I just despise Mould King in particular. The building instructions are non creative, the designs are largely stolen and you're almost guaranteed missing pieces.

Never heard of mould king before so I went to their website and the first thing you see is a "space wars" millenium falcon or some "lieboherr" excavator.

Seems like they copy whatever they want with some slight modification and brand it as "original".

They also made a (bad) typewriter after lego released the lego ideas typewriter.

What on earth is this?

https://www.mouldking.com/faq/

I see

> What Shipping Methods Are Available?

> Ex Portland Pitchfork irure mustache. Neutra fap before they sold out literally. Aliquip ugh bicycle rights actually mlkshk, seitan squid craft beer tempor.

Is everyone else seeing that, or is there some content blocker I've forgotten to disable?

I'm seeing it too.

I pasted one of the gibberish answers into the chat window and it replied "We’re currently unavailable. We’ll get back to you when one of our operators is able to respond." I'm almost tempted to give them an actual email address to see what comes back.

> Thundercats swag 8-bit photo booth. Plaid letterpress leggings craft beer meh ethical Pinterest. Twee chia photo booth readymade food truck, hoodie roof party swag keytar PBR DIY. Cray ugh 3 wolf moon fap, fashion axe irony butcher cornhole typewriter chambray VHS banjo street art.

They had me at “Thundercat swag” but lost me at “3 wolf moon fap.”

"Is Buying On-Line Safe?

Art party authentic freegan semiotics jean shorts chia cred. Neutra Austin roof party Brooklyn, synth Thundercats swag 8-bit photo booth. Plaid letterpress leggings craft beer meh ethical Pinterest"

At least they're honest

I think the pricing for small kits is where it’s most egregious. A small Star Wars set is likely to go for $30 minimum, I’m guessing due to licensing or something?

I don’t mind paying a premium for sets with thousands of pieces, but some of these work out to 25¢+ per piece and they get away with it because they’re the only option.

Not to mention most of the part counts are being driven up with 1x1 or 2x1 flat parts. I put together a $100 kit last month and it was largely these small pieces where longer ones could have been used.

If all you need is parts you can use bricklink. The prices of sets are not just driven by the manufacturing and martials but also by the creation process. There is a lot of work that goes into manuals, designs and building instructions as well as the customer service around it.

The average price per piece on BrickLink is the same as the pieces in the sets.

Prices vary greatly on a lot of factors.

Yeah, if anyone is a "serious" competitor to Lego, it's Mega Bloks. They have the Mattel IP licenses, they had several Nickelodeon properties, Star Trek, Halo, etc. McFarlane tried to get in the building block segment with Rick and Morty sets. Stuff that should have been solid sellers.

But without a doubt, Lego has been simply better quality across the board. Better builds, better bricks, better customer service. I bought the Ludo set and it had two of one piece and it was missing another (for the spinner). Sent a message to Lego with the set and piece number and within a week, I had the piece. I was missing an entire bag out of another set, and they sent that to me as well. And out of my 30+ years of buying and building sets, those are the only two times there's been mistakes.

And as to the prices, Lego's price per piece has remained fairly consistent, it's just that their sets have increased in complexity and piece count over the years. It's an issue they've recognized and are adjusting for. They realized they needed more products in the $10 - $30 price range.

I don’t support Mould King copying Lego sets and MOCs. That’s bad and not ethical. But that’s how industry works. Mould King has original sets now and okayish brick quality. They will probably get more original sets and increase brick quality even more. Then there are Mega Blocks mentioned by others.

100€ brick set is expensive compared to average monthly salary of 2000€. That’s roughly average in Germany. And probably half week’s pay in FAANG in US.

Mould King (like basically all Lego ripoffs) might have some legitimate designs but most of it effectively exists because Lego is popular. They are exploiting the marketing efforts and designs of Lego (and the MOC community) for their own profit. I find this despicable and not worth supporting.

About the cost: toys are expensive but compared to a lot of other things Lego doesn’t get old, is replayable and comes with a huge ecosystem. We rebuilt lots of sets thanks to the ability to get the manuals in the app. Lego sets gave us a lot more joy than many more expensive plastic toys that were only fun for limited time.

So mega bloks isn’t much of a competitor?

The price of a Lego set has been around 10 cents a piece for a very very long time. Sometimes you can find cheaper if it's just a bucket of bricks instead of a set with instructions, sometimes you find more expensive when a set includes difficult to manufacture parts, or electronics.

There are also a few sets that are targeted at grownups, like giant starwars ships, and those will sometimes (rarely) rip you off for no good reason. But the 10c/piece rule of thumb is very easy to check.

So... you can't put anything on top of the "box", and it's a pain to clean with all the bumps?

Yeah... no.

It’s such a stupid design but people will buy it anyways. It looks cool and that’s all that matters.

Support your local woodworker. They can make stuff that’s totally unique and way better than mass produced garbage from some executive at Lego that had an itch to scratch.

I bought a beautiful coffee table years ago at a craft fair type event for my dad for father's day. The creator was thrilled (I was one of his first customers judging by the receipt number), and it still looks great and holds up well all these years later. Definitely recommended.

I don't think they will.

I saw a bunch of this collection at Target and it all looks terrible in person.

To me Lego as a brand is quality and creative. Whereas these products all felt cheap and janky.

I would bet on them all being on clearance after Christmas.

And you can't have any fun assembling them, even though it's Lego-themed.

And the giant 'dots' as hooks look barely functional (though to be fair there are plenty of cool-looking but poorly thought out hooks and racks already on the market).

It's lego, they could sell the lego equivalent of the flat tile piece in whichever size is needed to have a smooth surface on top.

I would prefer the logo to be less visible, I don't want my home to be a Lego ad.

The lego logo is exactly where it appears on lego bricks, and it about the only part of this product that can differentiate itself from any generic-and-legally-commercially-produced-and-sold product

The contrast is a lot smaller on the plastic bricks. You can see the logo if you look for it, it's not the first thing you notice.

The lego logo is not colored on the bricks though, but embossed (raised). It would be much less visible on the wood products if it were just a relief, but they purposely colored the logo (to give the impression of wood burning it seems).

Had exactly the same feeling: by upscaling and burning the logo into the wood (altering its brightness) it becomes way too predominant… and repetition does the rest.

Personally I have the same attitude with clothing and shoes: can’t wear something with even the tiniest logo on it (only exception: running shoes).

Btw, it would probably be more fun and true to the Lego spirit if they did the furniture with real Lego bricks instead of this kitschy thing that looks like advertisement: just a big pack of default 2×8 lego bricks (monochrome or duotone?) and some extra pieces for the functional details…

These things are not beautiful and are not fun… basically they are anti-Lego.

The intended target audience (serious adult LEGO fans or parents buying for their kids rooms) will want the logo prominently featured. It adds authenticity and therefore significant value.

Oof, and designer/artsy pricing to match. £89-99 for the 1x1 wall stud, depending on colour...

Note that that pricing for the 1x1 wall stud is for a set of 3, so the pricing is not _that_ outrageously expensive.

All those pictures, yet none of them show the underside of any of the blocks.

There is one photo that shows a frame stacked above another as though they are interlocking. So I think they do.

What I want to know is how mechanically sound the interlock is and how durable it is.

In the plastic versions, there is no mechanical connection. The boxes just sit on top of each other, the pegs keep them aligned with little play, but you can pretty much just pick up the top box and the bottom one will stay in place.

So it's semi practical (alignment) and mostly aesthetic..

You can see the thick base underneath the drawer.

The base is thicker, but still thinner than the height of the pegs on top. However, there's a hidden extra layer between the drawer and the base: https://www.johnlewis.com/lego-4020-wooden-2x2-desk-drawer/p...

I've been thinking about this. Some kind of universal modular system for storage, or other things, would be pretty interesting!

Make a large flat piece (4x6) that you can screw legs onto the bottom, and now you have a configurable nightstand. Or a table and you can configure your own desk setup, or change it depending on what activity you are doing. You'd need the large flat tiles for a smooth working surface.

Doesn't have to be lego specific design, but some kind of standard to avoid always having to buy a brand new system at IKEA or walmart etc when you want stackable storage.

EDIT: I found a similar system, https://www.everblocksystems.com/ I'm thinking more of an open standard that can be done on any CNC machine though

Not modular exactly and certainly not a standard, but I like Really Useful Boxes. They make simple plastic boxes in a range of sizes across a few footprints, at least one of which is half of one of the others sideways.

And has a good dimensions table:

https://www.reallyusefulproducts.co.uk/uk/html/boxdetails.ph...

... And more Christmas publicity stunts (for a tenth of the money that would cost traditional advertising).

I'm wondering why they did this themselves, and didn't license IKEA to produce & sell it.

They do have a collaboration with Ikea on some storage boxes for kids. Sadly those boxes are way too small to be useful (the smallest box should really be the current largest box). They should also make a table with storage and a base plate on to, we ended up making our own using an Ikea table, a large base plate and glue.

BYGGLEK if anyone is trying to find it: https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/new/play-never-stops-with-the-byg...

Lego started out making wooden toys.

As detailed in the second paragraph of the article

I like the principle of modular wooden design, but the branding on them panders to the infantalization of the adults who would buy them. Truly, for children of all ages.

The concept is interesting, but having the logo on every single object limits their appeal. Lego die-hards aren't the only people that may be interested.

I’d rather the dead space the bumps take up didn’t exist and the items were smaller.

So you'd rather Lego made non-Lego ones? There are plenty like what you describe already.

I’d rather they didn’t bother at all and stuck to their core competency.

Is the price o.k. though?

I think we'll have to reach a common definition for "ok", I may be (actually I am) cheap but 115 UK pounds for a small wooden box?

https://www.johnlewis.com/lego-4020-wooden-2x2-desk-drawer/p...

I understand that is a steal if compared to the 90 UK pounds for 3 (three) wooden pegs:

https://www.johnlewis.com/lego-4016-wooden-1x1-wall-hanger-s...

The only adjective that comes to my mind is "outrageous".

And it's butt jointed. There's no engineering excellence unlike the lego pieces themselves. It's really not hard to do better even just with cncing dovetails. Outrageous indeed.

It's solid oak. Just the material would retail for around £20-30.

The price is outrageous compared to something from Jysk (Danish version of Ikea), and I wouldn't buy it, but it is within the general price range of Danish designer furniture.

Example, £200 for a 150cm oak shelf: https://www.bolia.com/da-dk/produkter/04-008-11_15934774/

>It's solid oak. Just the material would retail for around £20-30.

I would not be that sure, the description talks of "solid oak & veneer", but given that it is all solid oak (the drawer is most probably veneer), it is anyway an industrial product.

Dimensions: H11.3 x W15.8 x D15.8cm

Using approximate measures an 1.5 cm for thickness to consider waste, I get:

Back+back of drawer+front of drawer=3x0.12x0.16x0.015=0.000864

Bottom+Top+bottom of drawer=3x0.16x0.16x0.015=0.001152

sides+sides of drawer=4x0.16x0.12x0.015=0.001152

wooden pegs=4xPix0.02x0.02x0.03=0.000151

total 0.003319 m3, let's add some 20% more, 0,004

20/0.004=5,000pounds/m3

30/0.004=7,500 pounds/m3

I think a very fine european oak should sell retail for 2,000 pounds/m3 or less.

Definitely not.

Had to double check if it was April the first..

Yeah no thank you

This is very very bad for my bank balance…

How very twee.

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