151-500: Lego Space is a science fiction-oriented Lego theme which focuses on astronauts, space colonization, spaceships, and extraterrestrial life. Introduced in 1978, along with Castle and Town , with each of the three themes representing the 'Past' (Castle), 'Present' (Town) and 'Future' (Space). It is one of the oldest and most extensive themes in Lego history , consisting of over 300 individual sets. At least three Lego sets were released prior to
302-412: A Los Angeles –based freelance designer was in fact behind the designs. Fashion house Marc Jacobs designed a smiley in 2018, which had a yellow outline, with the letters M and J replacing the eyes. The mouth design was similar to the original Nirvana design. In January 2019, legal representatives of Nirvana announced they were suing Marc Jacobs for a breach of copyright . Following the announcement by
453-426: A cameo from street artist, André Saraiva and portrays different groups portraying the message "Take The Time To Smile." The video partners that message with numerous smileys, on the side of buildings, on placards and on posters. Vittel announced in 2017 that they would be using the smiley on a special edition design of its water bottles . AdAge referred to its use as a "feel-good effect" and water bottles using
604-537: A children's toy, there have also been adult fans of the toys. In 2020, Lego introduced sets aged at 18+, generally some of their more expensive and difficult-to-assemble sets based on real world or fictional objects, such as the Concorde or Rivendell . The timing of these sets favorably aligned with the COVID-19 pandemic , with many adults purchasing these sets to work on during various lockdown periods. Popularity within adults
755-521: A common sentiment, Lego toys seem to have become a significant exception to the dislike of plastic in children's toys, due in part to the high standards set by Ole Kirk. By 1954, Christiansen's son, Godtfred , had become the junior managing director of the Lego Group. It was his conversation with an overseas buyer that led to the idea of a toy system. Godtfred saw the immense potential in Lego bricks to become
906-456: A competition for listeners. When the station called listeners, any listener who answered their phone "WMCA Good Guys!" was rewarded with a "WMCA good guys" sweatshirt that incorporated the yellow and black happy face into its design. The features of the WMCA smiley was a yellow face, with black dots as eyes and had a slightly crooked smile. The outline of the face was also not smooth to give it more of
1057-470: A foundation to create emoticon emojis . These are digital interpretations of the smiley ideogram and have since become the most commonly used set of emojis since they adopted by Unicode in 2006 onwards. Smiley has since become a broader term that often includes both the ideogram design, but also emojis that use the same yellow and black design. For thousands of years, smiling faces have been used as ideograms and pictograms . The oldest known smiling face
1208-528: A hand drawn look. Originally, the yellow and black sweatshirt (sometimes referred to as gold), had WMCA Good Guys written on the front with no smiley face. A number of United States –based designers created yellow and black happy faces over the next decade. In Worcester, Massachusetts , graphic designer Harvey Ross Ball created a happy face to raise the morale of the employees at the State Mutual Life Assurance Company. Ball created
1359-518: A height of 149 cm (60 in), which makes it the tallest set and tower but the second in number of parts after the World Map. The company also initiated a robotics line of toys called 'Mindstorms' in 1999, and continued to expand and update this range until it was eventually discontinued in 2022. The roots of the product originated with a programmable brick developed at the MIT Media Lab , and
1510-473: A journalist for France Soir in 1971. The smiley accompanied positive news in the newspaper and eventually became the foundation for the licensing operation, The Smiley Company . Competing terms were used such as smiling face and happy face before consensus was reached on the term smiley. The name smiley became commonly used in the 1970s and 1980s as the yellow and black ideogram began to appear more in popular culture . The ideogram has since been used as
1661-401: A large fan community based around building competitions and custom creations, and a range of films , games , and eight Legoland amusement parks have been developed under the brand. The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891–1958), a carpenter from Billund , Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932. In 1934, his company came to be called "Lego", derived from
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#17328526296311812-513: A large monorail system powered by a 9V battery. The four sets were designed in blue and grey with transparent blue canopies and transparent neon green highlights. It also retained Lego interchangeability in the form of small cockpits that could dock on the front or top of its vehicles. Except for the Monorail set, the theme was only released in the United States and Canada. In 1996 Lego returned to
1963-471: A large spacecraft, the "Renegade", which set the tone for all future large ships by splitting into a number of smaller modules, including a storage bin for a small, wheeled vehicle, which could be recombined not only with each other but also with modules from other vehicles in the theme, specifically the "Invader" and "Battrax". This modular interchangeability remained a staple of Lego Space until 2001. In 1989 Lego decided to further its storyline direction with
2114-508: A line representing eyes and a mouth. More elaborate designs in the 1950s emerged, with noses, eyebrows, and outlines. New York radio station WMCA used a yellow and black design for its " Good Guys " campaign in the early 1960s. More yellow-and-black designs appeared in the 1960s and 1970s, including works by Harvey Ross Ball in 1963, and Franklin Loufrani in 1971. Today, The Smiley Company founded by Franklin Loufrani claims to hold
2265-481: A more complex print (in this case, the face augmented by a fringe of hair and an ear-mounted microphone). Finally, Space Police II ships were known for being under-armed; several vehicles sported no overt weapons (such as the Galactic Chief, whose epaulette-wearing pilot is armed with only a hand-held blaster that might actually be a megaphone ), and the others featured only two small cockpit-mounted weapons (including
2416-694: A newly redesigned helmet with a transparent blue visor. Instead of a large spaceship, the theme centered around the Monorail Transport System, which featured a battery-powered train and six metres (20 ft) of track. At the time, this was the most expensive Lego set. Blacktron, like Futuron, was one of the first unified subthemes in space. The set designs used a black and yellow color scheme, with transparent yellow windscreens and transparent red highlights. The Blacktron minifigures wore black jumpsuits similar to those worn by modern military pilots, with white trims and opaque black visors. Blacktron featured
2567-407: A nose, teeth, pie eyes, and triangles over the eyes. Ingmar Bergman 's 1948 film Port of Call includes a scene where the unhappy Berit(played by Nine-Christine Jönsson ) draws a sad face – closely resembling the modern "frowny" but including a dot for the nose – in lipstick on her mirror before being interrupted. In 1953 and 1958, similar happy faces were used in promotional campaigns for
2718-466: A predominantly blue and grey color scheme. For the sequel, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part , a set called "Benny's Space Squad" was released, featuring Benny, along with three astronauts: Kenny, Jenny, and Lenny, which were colored yellow, white, and pink respectively. Another set released for the film, "Emmet and Benny's Build and Fix Workshop", contained a spaceship that imitated the appearance of Classic Space sets. In October 2020, an orange version of
2869-580: A privately held company based in Billund , Denmark . Lego consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks made of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) that accompany an array of gears , figurines called minifigures , and various other parts. Its pieces can be assembled and connected in many ways to construct objects, including vehicles, buildings, and working robots. Assembled Lego models can be taken apart, and their pieces can be reused to create new constructions. The Lego Group began manufacturing
3020-593: A red or white spacesuit, with yellow space minifigures debuting a year later. By the mid-1980s the color palette had shifted to predominantly white with a transparent blue theme, later used extensively in the Lego Futuron theme. Two new colors of space minifigures were introduced in black and blue uniforms. The first helmets had thin chin straps that would break easily. In 1983, the helmet with thicker chinstraps appeared, although they were still susceptible to breakage. In 1987 Lego added "factions" to its space theme with
3171-565: A red shirt with an "M" logo in the middle, and a black helmet with a transparent neon green visor. This theme also extensively used brick-built robot figures (droids) to assist the M:Tron space minifigures. These were the last sets produced under the "Legoland" banner before Lego began branding their sets as Lego System . In 1991 Blacktron was revived as Blacktron Future Generation (commonly called Blacktron II). The sets' color designs featured black with white trim and transparent neon green canopies, and
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#17328526296313322-402: A safe digital environment for children, including the protection of personal information and the heavy moderation of all uploaded user-generated content and communication. My Lego Network was a social networking site that involved items, blueprints, ranks, badges which were earned for completing certain tasks, trading and trophies called masterpieces which allowed users to progress to go to
3473-493: A serious form of play. Lego branched out into the video game market in 1997 by founding Lego Media International Limited , and Lego Island was released that year by Mindscape . After this Lego released titles such as Lego Creator and Lego Racers . After Lego closed down their publishing subsidiary, they moved on to a partnership with Traveller's Tales , and went on to make games like Lego Star Wars , Lego Indiana Jones , Lego Batman , and many more including
3624-429: A shipment of bricks delivered by clone producer Qman was blocked from passing through German customs due to concerns over the potential infringement of Lego's intellectual property. The recipient toy retailer initiated an appeal for donations to import containers of Lego clones from China to Germany and donate them to children's homes, which received more than € 350,000 within a couple of weeks. First launched in 1996,
3775-592: A similar design. The Smiley Company claims to own the rights to the Smiley trademark in one hundred countries. Its subsidiary, SmileyWorld Ltd, in London, headed by Nicolas Loufrani, creates or approves all the Smiley products sold in countries where it holds the trademark. The Smiley brand and logo have significant exposure through licensees in sectors such as clothing, home decoration, perfumery, plush, stationery, publishing, and through promotional campaigns. The Smiley Company
3926-575: A smiley design incorporated on the front. Other fashion labels that have used the smiley on their garments include H&M and Zara . The smiley has also featured on high-end fashion lines, including Fendi and Moncler . High end French jeweller Valerie Messika produced white gold and yellow pendants, which contained a smiley face. For the 50th birthday of the Smiley, Galeries Lafayette in Paris , Beijing and Shanghai and 10 Nordstrom department stores sold limited edition smiley products to commemorate
4077-494: A smiley was his Flying Copper portrait, which was completed in 2004. It was during a period when Banksy experimented with working on canvas and paper portraits. He also used the smiley in 2005 to replace the face of the grim reaper . The image became known as "grin reaper." In 2007, The Smiley Company partnered with Moschino for the campaign, "Smiley for Moschino." During the COVID-19 pandemic , fashion label Pull & Bear announced they would be releasing t-shirts with
4228-568: A smiling face into their culture. In the late 1970s, the American band Dead Kennedys launched their first recording, " California über alles ". The single cover was a collage aimed to look like that of a Nazi rally prior to World War II . It featured three of the vertical banners commonly used at such rallies, but with the usual swastikas replaced by large smileys. In the UK, the happy face has been associated with psychedelic culture since Ubi Dwyer and
4379-468: A smiling face" was in 1957. In 1957 Jane McHenry wrote in a write-up in Family Weekly Magazine , Do-It-Yourself Carnival "Tape a paper plate to the mop head for a face, arranging string strands on each side for the hair. Draw a big smiley face on the plate!" A year later, there was an illustration of a noseless smiling face containing two dots, eyebrows, and a single curved line for a mouth in
4530-491: A system for creative play, but the bricks still had some problems from a technical standpoint: Their locking ability was still limited, and they were not yet versatile. In 1958, the modern brick design was developed; ABS subsequently replaced cellulose acetate as the manufacturing material five years later. A patent application for the modern Lego brick design was filed in Denmark on 28 January 1958 and in various other countries in
4681-444: A team of intergalactic heroes and robot sidekicks trying to defeat an alien race of space bugs—humanoids with insect features—intent on "cocooning" the galaxy with special two-piece cocoons that can each enclose a standard minifigure. The heroes' vehicles feature a notable "split function" ability, which allows them to split into two different vehicles. In the storyline, Galaxy Squad was a direct continuation of Lego Monster Fighters and
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4832-699: A television series titled Nexo Knights made its debut for the Lego Nexo Knights brand. An animated series titled Lego Elves was released in 2015 and another titled Lego Elves: Secrets of Elvendale was released in 2017 for the Lego Elves brand. In 2016, Lego Bionicle: The Journey To One was released for the Bionicle franchise and Lego Friends: The Power of Friendship for the Lego Friends brand. In June 2019, an animated series titled Lego City Adventures
4983-411: A theme that would be used for the next decade. Space Police also used modular systems, but on a smaller scale, by featuring a Space Police jail cell that could be used interchangeably among almost all sets and came with a Blacktron occupant. In 1990 Lego introduced M:Tron, a theme of sets designed around magnets. After the introduction of Space Police, M:Tron was introduced as a repair and rescue faction,
5134-407: A tolerance of up to twenty micrometres to ensure the bricks remain connected. Human inspectors check the output of the moulds to eliminate significant variations in colour or thickness. According to the Lego Group, about eighteen bricks out of every million fail to meet the standard required. Lego factories recycle all but about 1 percent of their plastic waste from the manufacturing process. If
5285-595: A wave hit a cargo ship off the coast of Cornwall , England. Pieces have washed up over the ensuing decades, attracting attention from news outlets and social media. In May 2011, Space Shuttle Endeavour mission STS-134 brought 13 Lego kits to the International Space Station , where astronauts built models to see how they would react in microgravity , as a part of the Lego Bricks in Space program. In May 2013,
5436-564: A weekend-long event in which a Master Model Builder creates, with the help of volunteers—a larger-than-life Lego statue, which is then displayed at the new store for several weeks. Since around 2000, the Lego Group has been promoting "Lego Serious Play", a form of business consultancy fostering creative thinking, in which team members build metaphors of their organizational identities and experiences using Lego bricks. Participants work through imaginary scenarios using visual three-dimensional Lego constructions, imaginatively exploring possibilities in
5587-490: A white and blue color scheme, while the aliens had a variety of colors. The Martians in the Life on Mars theme was unique in that they were named after real-life stars and constellations: Altair , Centauri , Antares , Canopus , Pollux , Vega , Arcturus , Cassiopeia , Mizar , and Rigel . Mars Mission is the second Mars space theme to feature both humans and aliens and is a reboot of Life on Mars . Unlike Life on Mars ,
5738-520: A write-up in Family Weekly Magazine , Galloping Ghosts! by Bill Ross with the text: "Collect six empty pop bottles and six cone-shaped paper cups. With crayons draw smiley faces on three of the cups and scary ones on the others. Put a cup on top of each bottle and line them up as 'ghosts.'...Keep score by counting five points for each scary-faced ghost knocked over and, since it is a night for spooks, only one point for each smiley !" Early designs were often called "smiling face" or "happy face." In 1961
5889-458: A written document was drawn by a Slovak notary to indicate his satisfaction with the state of his town's municipal financial records in 1635. The gold smiling face was drawn on the bottom of the legal document, appearing next to lawyer's Jan Ladislaides signature. A disputed early use of the smiley in a printed text may have been in Robert Herrick 's poem To Fortune (1648), which contains
6040-404: A year. The claim was reiterated in 2012. In April 2023, Lego broke ground on its first manufacturing facility in the United States. The new carbon-neutral factory will be located near Richmond, Virginia. It will amount to over $ 1 billion in investment once completed in 2025. The 340 acre site will have rooftop and ground solar panels and an on-site 35-40 MW solar plant, generating the equivalent of
6191-669: A yellow happy face to demonstrate happiness, beginning in the 1960s. Before many countries had licensing and/or trademark restrictions on the smiley, different designs were used sparingly in advertising campaigns in the early to mid 1900s. Much of this activity was centered on the Northeastern United States . One of the first known commercial uses of a smiling face was in 1919, when the Buffalo Steam Roller Company in Buffalo, New York , applied stickers on receipts with
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6342-606: Is 4,240 newtons . Since an average 2×2 Lego brick has a mass of 1.152 grams (0.0406 oz), according to their calculations it would take a stack of 375,000 bricks to cause the bottom brick to collapse, which represents a stack 3,591 metres (11,781 ft) in height. Private tests have shown several thousand assembly-disassembly cycles before the bricks begin to wear out , although Lego tests show fewer cycles. In 2018, Lego announced that it will be using bio-derived polyethylene to make its botanical elements (parts such as leaves, bushes and trees). The New York Times reported
6493-500: Is also the first Space Police theme to include enemy ships instead of just prisoners, and it is the first Space Police theme in 16 years. A gang, including Kranxx , Snake , the Skull Twins , Slizer, and Squidman , are the main troublemakers for Space Police III with independent, Frenzy keeping them busy as well. However, another antagonist of the series named Rench bears the old Blacktron Future Generation logo on his uniform (which
6644-409: Is an official piece of Lego software for Mac OS X and Windows which allows users to create their own digital Lego designs. The program once allowed customers to order custom designs with a service to ship physical models from Digital Designer to consumers; the service ended in 2012. Since 1963, Lego pieces have been manufactured from ABS plastic. As of September 2008 , Lego engineers use
6795-491: Is an updated original Blacktron uniform). Hinting that he may have a connection with the old Blacktron faction, as well as hinting that the Space Police are in the same continuity as their older versions. Alien Conquest was released on 17 May 2011, and is the first sub-theme to feature aliens on Earth; specifically, a new wave of aliens begins attacking Earth. Multiple cities around the globe report massive abductions and UFOs in
6946-405: Is available as a free download and only features Lego-related content. It was designed to be a social network for children to be inspired, create and share their Lego builds, photos and videos with a like-minded community, whilst also providing Lego content in the form of product advertising, images, videos, campaigns and competitions. The app incorporates a variety of child safety features to provide
7097-511: Is likely that the parenthesis was added later by modern editors. On the Internet , the smiley has become a visual means of conveyance that uses images. The first known mention on the Internet was on 19 September 1982, when Scott Fahlman from Carnegie Mellon University wrote: I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers: :-) Read it sideways. Actually, it
7248-517: Is one of the 100 top licensing companies in the world, with a turnover of US$ 167 million in 2012. The first Smiley shop opened in London in the Boxpark shopping center in December 2011. In 2022, there were many birthday celebrations for the smiley. Many of these came in the form of collaborations between The Smiley Company and large retailers, such as Nordstrom . The earliest known smiley-like image in
7399-417: Is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use :-( Yellow graphical smileys have been used for many different purposes, including use in early 1980s video games . Yahoo! Messenger (from 1998) used smiley symbols in the user list next to each user, and also as an icon for the application. In November 2001, and later, smiley emojis inside
7550-538: Is to identify market trends and developments, including contact by the designers directly with the market; some are stationed in toy shops close to holidays, while others interview children. The second stage is the design and development of the product based on the results of the first stage. As of September 2008 the design teams use 3D modelling software to generate CAD drawings from initial design sketches. The designs are then prototyped using an in-house stereolithography machine. These prototypes are presented to
7701-586: The Legoland and Lego System banners. The first Lego Space sets began an era of more complicated and less colorful designs with a heavy emphasis on space exploration . Many early space sets were primarily blue, grey, and white and included translucent yellow windscreens and blocks. Grey and transparent green were used for ground craft. Designs began using stacked plates rather than stacked bricks to create thinner elements. In their earliest stages Space sets consisted only of ships and basic wheeled vehicles, but as
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#17328526296317852-1031: The Blackstone Group of New York while the remaining 30% is still held by Lego Group. There are also eight Legoland Discovery Centres , two in Germany, four in the United States, one in Japan and one in the United Kingdom. Two Legoland Discovery Centres opened in 2013: one at the Westchester Ridge Hill shopping complex in Yonkers , New York, and one at the Vaughan Mills in Vaughan , Ontario, Canada. Another opened at American Dream Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey , in 2021. The first Lego store to open anywhere in
8003-688: The CoCo Toy Company in Beijing for copyright infringement over its "Coko bricks" product. CoCo was ordered to cease manufacture of the products, publish a formal apology and pay damages. Lego sued the English company Best-Lock Construction Toys in German courts in 2004 and 2009; the Federal Patent Court of Germany denied Lego trademark protection for the shape of its bricks for the latter case. In 2005,
8154-541: The Danish phrase leg godt [lɑjˀ ˈkʌt] , which means "play well". In 1947, Lego expanded to begin producing plastic toys. In 1949 the business began producing, among other new products, an early version of the now familiar interlocking bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks". These bricks were based on the Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, invented by Hilary Page in 1939 and patented in
8305-543: The NX CAD / CAM / CAE PLM software suite to model the elements. The software allows the parts to be optimised by way of mould flow and stress analysis . Prototype moulds are sometimes built before the design is committed to mass production. The ABS plastic is heated to 232 °C (450 °F) until it reaches a dough -like consistency. It is then injected into the moulds using forces of between 25 and 150 tonnes and takes approximately 15 seconds to cool. The moulds are permitted
8456-482: The Shift JIS standard. This resulted in a de facto standard in the range with lead bytes 0xF5 to 0xF9. KDDI has gone much further than this, and has introduced hundreds more in the space with lead bytes 0xF3 and 0xF4. The smiley has now become synonymous with culture across the world. It is used for communication , imagery, branding, and topical purposes to display a range of emotions . In print, numerous brands used
8607-450: The WMCA 's Good Guys, incorporated a black smiley onto a yellow sweatshirt, and it was nicknamed the "happy face." The Spain brothers and Harvey Ross Ball both had designs in the 70s that concentrated more on slogans than the actual name of the smiley. When Ball's design was completed, it was not given an official name. It was however labeled as "The Smile Insurance Company" which appeared on
8758-571: The Windsor Free Festival in the 1970s and the electronic dance music culture, particularly with acid house , that emerged during the Second Summer of Love in the late 1980s. The association was cemented when the band Bomb the Bass used an extracted smiley from the comic book series Watchmen on the center of its " Beat Dis " hit single. In addition to the movie adaptation of Watchmen ,
8909-468: The 7317 Aero Tube Hangar set. This system would later be seen in the Mars Mission theme, used to shoot missiles. The theme also introduced several new muted colors to the Lego color palette, including Sand Green, Sand Blue, Sand Red, and Sand Purple. Sets were designed to easily separate into segments to encourage children to mix and create their own unique vehicles out of human and alien sets. The humans had
9060-510: The Anchor Space theme, predating the introduction of the standard Lego minifigure . Most Lego sets of this era were composed only of bricks in basic colors. Hence, the early Space sets had a limited color selection, and more specialized pieces had not yet been developed. Once Lego began producing individual themes in the 1970s, many new parts were created, and original pieces began appearing in new colors. Lego Space has been marketed and sold under
9211-529: The Chicago federal court. The terms remain confidential. In 2016, Walmart brought back the smiley face on its website, social media profiles, and in selected stores. The band Nirvana created its own smiley design in 1991. It was claimed that Kurt Cobain was the designer of the Nirvana smiley. Following his death, this claim was one of the reasons why it became so iconic. As recently as 2020, media reports suggested
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#17328526296319362-733: The Classic Space astronaut was released with the book Lego Minifigure: A Visual History . Lego released an updated version of the Galaxy Explorer for their 90th-anniversary celebrations in 2022. Like the original, it included four astronaut minifigures, a robot, and a pull-out rover from the back, but excluded the baseplate and satellite tower. Lego also released digital instructions for two alternate builds based on 924 "Space Cruiser" and 918 "Space Transport". There have been occasional references to Blacktron and other Space sub-themes in newer sets and minifigures as well. In December 2023 sets with
9513-469: The Classic Space logo. One of the main characters in The Lego Movie and its sequel, The Lego Movie 2 , Benny (voiced by Charlie Day ), is a blue Classic Space minifigure with notable signs of wear and tear, including a broken chinstrap on his helmet. A set released for the film, 70816 "Benny's Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP!", featured a spaceship highly reminiscent of Classic Space spaceships, with
9664-521: The Happy Face in his run for Seattle mayor in 1993. The Philadelphia-based brothers Bernard and Murray Spain also used the design on novelty items for their business, Traffic Stoppers. They focused on the slogan "Have a happy day," which mutated into " Have a nice day ." As with Harvey Ball, they also produced happy face badges, producing over 50 million with New York button manufacturer NG Slater. In 1972, Frenchman Franklin Loufrani legally trademarked
9815-681: The Lego Company sued Canadian company Ritvik Holdings Inc., which makes Mega Bloks , for trademark violation. However, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld Ritvik Holdings Inc.'s rights to sell its product . In 2010, the European Court of Justice ruled that the eight-peg design of the original Lego brick "merely performs a technical function [and] cannot be registered as a trademark." In 2020 and 2021, Lego sent cease and desist letters to small toy retailers and popular YouTubers in Germany. In 2021,
9966-409: The Lego website has developed over the years, and provides many extra services beyond an online store and a product catalogue. There are also moderated message boards that were founded in 2001. The site also includes instruction booklets for all Lego sets dating back to 2002. The Lego website features a social media app named Lego Life , which is designed for children under 13 years of age. The app
10117-402: The Space logo and branding as subthemes of Lego City , Lego Friends , Lego Dreamzzz , Lego Technic , Lego Classic, Lego Duplo , and Lego Creator have been leaked with a release of 2024. Lego Lego ( / ˈ l ɛ ɡ oʊ / , LEG -oh ; Danish: [ˈle̝ːko] ; stylised as LEGO ) is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group ,
10268-565: The UFO's minifigures were cybernetic in nature. They featured two wholly robotic figures. Many of its spaceships used saucers or half-saucers as elements befitting its name. It has the smallest proportion of wheeled ground vehicles to ships (two to nine) of any Lego Space theme before or since. The UFO theme is often considered the first space theme to heavily rely on large pieces meant to provide effects (such as curvature) that would be difficult to achieve with traditional Lego pieces, which became common over
10419-556: The United Kingdom in 1940 before being displayed at the 1947 Earl's Court Toy Fair. Lego had received a sample of the Kiddicraft bricks from the supplier of an injection-molding machine that it purchased. The bricks, originally manufactured from cellulose acetate , were a development of the traditional stackable wooden blocks of the time. The Lego Group's motto , "only the best is good enough" ( Danish : det bedste er ikke for godt , literally "the best isn't excessively good")
10570-604: The United Kingdom to mark the opening of the games. For the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro , Lego released a kit with the Olympic and Paralympic mascots Vinicius and Tom . One of the largest commercially produced Lego sets was a minifigure -scaled edition of the Star Wars Millennium Falcon . Designed by Jens Kronvold Fredericksen, it was released in 2007 and contained 5,195 pieces. It
10721-442: The activity of the muscle in the stump and send a signal to control movement in the attachment. A processing unit in the body of the prosthetic contained an engine compatible with Lego Mindstorms, which allowed the wearer to build an extensive range of customised, programmable limbs. Lego's popularity is demonstrated by its wide representation and usage in many cultural works, including books, films, and art. It has even been used in
10872-469: The actual chat text was adopted by several chat systems, including Yahoo Messenger. The smiley is the printable version of characters 1 and 2 of (black-and-white versions of) codepage 437 (1981) of the first IBM PC and all subsequent PC compatible computers. For modern computers, all versions of Microsoft Windows after Windows 95 can use the smiley as part of Windows Glyph List 4 , although some computer fonts miss some characters. The smiley face
11023-440: The aliens (an alien race from another planet) and humans were adversaries. Like with Life on Mars theme, this set is generally viewed as a sequel to the first Martian sets. Space Police III continued the Lego trend of humans versus aliens started in the former Mars Mission theme. This is the first time the Space Police have been pitted against monstrous-looking aliens instead of human-looking villains, like Blacktron or Spyrius. It
11174-416: The anniversary. During the same year, Lee Jeans announced the launch of a new clothing collection, Lee x Smiley. In 1980, Namco released the now famous Pac-Man , a yellow faced cartoon character. In 2008, the video game Battlefield: Bad Company used the yellow smiley as part of its branding for the game. The smiley appeared throughout the game and also on the cover. The smiley normally appeared on
11325-542: The audience. Each had a large smiley face. Walmart uses a smiley face as its mascot. User experience researchers showed that the usage of smileys to represent measurement scales may ease the challenges related to translation and implementation for brief cross-cultural surveys. The Brooklyn Bridge had a smiley projected onto the base one evening in 2020. The smiley was part of a wider campaign by The Smiley Company to increase happiness for New Yorkers . The 82 feet wide projected smiley featured light pink lipstick on
11476-451: The back of the badges he created. The label was due to the fact the badges were designed for commercial use for an insurance company. The Spain brothers used the slogan Have a nice day , which is now frequently known for the slogan rather than the naming of the smiley. The word smiley was used by Franklin Loufrani in France, when he registered his smiley design for trademark while working as
11627-534: The bricks themselves, but as is common for trademarks , Lego group insists on the name being used as an adjective when referring to a product (as in "LEGO bricks"). Lego bricks have a reputation for causing pain when stepped on, often being humorously exaggerated as more extreme than that caused by even the worst injuries. The last significant patent for Lego bricks expired in 1978. Since then, competitors have produced blocks of similar dimensions and design that can be connected with Lego bricks. In 2002, Lego sued
11778-636: The classic themes that continue to the present day include Lego City (a line of sets depicting city life introduced in 1973) and Lego Technic (a line aimed at emulating complex machinery, introduced in 1977). Over the years, the company has licensed themes from numerous cartoon and film franchises and some from video games. These include Batman , Indiana Jones , Pirates of the Caribbean , Harry Potter , Star Wars , Marvel , Minecraft and Wicked . Although some of these themes, Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones, had highly successful sales,
11929-651: The classroom as a teaching tool. In the US, Lego Education North America is a joint venture between Pitsco, Inc. and the educational division of the Lego Group. In 1998, Lego bricks were one of the original inductees into the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester , New York. "Lego" is commonly used as a mass noun ("some Lego") or, in American English , as a countable noun with plural "Legos", to refer to
12080-542: The company expressed in 2015 a desire to rely more upon their own characters and classic themes and less upon such licensed themes. Some sets include references to other themes such as a Bionicle mask in one of the Harry Potter sets. Discontinued sets may become a collectable and command value on the secondary market . For the 2012 Summer Olympics in London , Lego released a special Team GB Minifigures series exclusively in
12231-532: The company said it would aim to produce its bricks without using crude oil , by using recycled polyethylene terephthalate bottles, but in 2023 it reversed this decision, having found that this did not reduce its carbon dioxide emissions. Since the 1950s, the Lego Group has released thousands of sets with a variety of themes, including space , pirates , trains , (European) castle , dinosaurs , undersea exploration , and wild west , as well as wholly original themes like Bionicle and Hero Factory . Some of
12382-438: The company's footprint that year was "about a million tons of carbon dioxide each year" and that it was investing about 1 billion kroner and hiring 100 people to work on changes. The paper reported that Lego's researchers "have already experimented with around 200 alternatives." In 2020, Lego announced that it would cease packaging its products in single-use plastic bags and would instead be using recyclable paper bags. In 2021,
12533-453: The design in ten minutes and was paid $ 45 (equivalent to $ 448 in 2023). His rendition, with a bright yellow background, dark oval eyes, full smile, and creases at the sides of the mouth, was imprinted on more than fifty million buttons and became familiar worldwide. The design is so simple that it is certain that similar versions were produced before 1963, including those cited above. However, Ball's rendition, as described here, has become
12684-425: The design that his father came up with and Ball's design were nearly identical, Loufrani argued that the design is so simple that no one person can lay claim to having created it. As evidence for this, Loufrani's website points to early cave paintings found in France (dating from 2500 BC) that he claims are the first depictions of a smiley face. Loufrani also points to a 1960 radio ad campaign that reportedly made use of
12835-413: The earliest iteration of the product, the program would be uploaded to the programmable brick via an infrared transmitter, while in later versions this was achieved via Bluetooth or a USB cable. Unofficial programming languages that can be used with Lego Mindstorms programmable bricks have also been developed There have been several robotics competitions which used the Lego robotics sets. The earliest
12986-613: The early 1990s. As of March 2024 , Lego operates 1031 retail shops, called Lego Stores, globally. The world's largest Lego store is located in Leicester Square , London. The U.S. stores include the Downtown Disney shopping complexes at Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorts as well as in Mall of America in Bloomington , Minnesota. The opening of each new store is celebrated with
13137-576: The end of a child's limb. Iko was the work of the Chicago-based Colombian designer Carlos Arturo Torres, and is a modular system that allows children to customise their own prosthetics with the ease of clicking together plastic bricks. Designed with Lego's Future Lab, the Danish toy company's experimental research department, and Cirec, a Colombian foundation for physical rehabilitation, the modular prosthetic incorporated myoelectric sensors that register
13288-521: The energy of powering 10,000 American homes. In December 2012, the BBC 's More or Less radio program asked the Open University 's engineering department to determine "how many Lego bricks, stacked one on top of the other, it would take for the weight to destroy the bottom brick?" Using a hydraulic testing machine, members of the department determined the average maximum force a 2×2 Lego brick can stand
13439-414: The entire project team for comment and testing by parents and children during the "validation" process. Designs may then be altered in accordance with the results from the focus groups . Virtual models of completed Lego products are built concurrently with the writing of the user instructions. Completed CAD models are also used in the wider organisation for marketing and packaging. Lego Digital Designer
13590-502: The faction's insignia resembling Starfleet 's insignia. In 1997, taking over the "good guy" role was another four-set theme, Roboforce. The sets featured numerous large robots in varying color schemes, run by similarly uniformed pilots. Neon Orange Class features humanoid robots equipped with a buzzsaw or a chainsaw. The "head" of each robot was also a small spaceship that could be used as an escape pod or secondary vehicle. The Neon Green Class featured animal-shaped robots. The Robo Raptor
13741-407: The film Forrest Gump it is implied the titular character inspired the smiley face design after wiping his face on a T-shirt while running coast to coast. In the late-1980s, the smiley again became a prominent image within the music industry . It was adopted during the growth of acid house across Europe and the UK in the late 1980s. According to many, this began when DJ, Danny Rampling , used
13892-399: The film Suicide Squad has the character Deadshot staring into the window of a clothing store. Behind a line of mannequins is a yellow smiley face pin, which had been closely associated to another DC comic character, Comedian . The 2001 film Evolution has a three-eyed smiley for its logo. It was later carried onto the movie's spin-off cartoon, Alienators: Evolution Continues . In
14043-478: The films Lili (1953) and Gigi (1958). In September 1963, there was the premiere of The Funny Company , an American children's TV programmer, had a noseless Smiling face used as a kids' club logo; the closing credits ended with the message, "Keep Smiling!" In the latter half of the 20th century, the face now known as a smiley has evolved into a well-known symbol recognizable for its yellow and black features. The first known combination of yellow and black
14194-613: The following years. Lego: The Adventures of Clutch Powers was released on DVD in February 2010, a computer-animated film made by Tinseltown Toons. A computer-generated animated series titled Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu began in January 2011 for the Lego Ninjago brand. Another television series titled Legends of Chima began in 2013 for the Legends of Chima brand. In December 2015,
14345-607: The former three countries and in Kladno in the Czech Republic . The Lego Group estimates that in five decades it has produced 400 billion Lego blocks. Annual production of the bricks averages approximately 36 billion, or about 1140 elements per second. According to an article in BusinessWeek in 2006, Lego could also be considered the world's number-one tyre manufacturer; the factory produces about 306 million small rubber tyres
14496-815: The fourth in Carlsbad , California, the fifth in Winter Haven , Florida, the sixth in Iskandar Puteri , Malaysia, the seventh in Dubai , United Arab Emirates, and the eighth in Nagoya , Japan. A ninth is planned to open in 2020 in Goshen , New York, United States, and a tenth in 2022 in Shanghai , China. On 13 July 2005, the control of 70% of the Legoland parks was sold for $ 460 million to
14647-563: The games use dice . In Lego Games, the dice are Lego, with Lego squares with symbols on Lego studs on the dice, surrounded by rubber. The games vary from simple to complex; some are similar to "traditional" board games, while others are completely different. The first official Lego film was the straight-to-DVD release of Bionicle: Mask of Light in 2003 developed by Creative Capers Entertainment and distributed by Miramax Home Entertainment . Several other straight-to-DVD computer-animated Bionicle sequels and Hero Factory movies were produced in
14798-492: The ground vehicles were designed like giant robots. The faction was often marketed as stealing technology from Unitron. This nine-set theme was the first to feature robot minifigures. Also in 1994, Unitron took over the "good guy" role from the Space Police II. The Unitron theme revolved around a group dedicated to defending the galaxies from Spyrius while they explored the unknown reaches of space. Their base of operations had
14949-551: The ideogram he created in the United States . Walmart contested his application, as it began using its "Rolling Back Prices" campaign a year prior. The fallout led to a 2002 court case, and a seven-year ongoing case. The fallout resulted in Wal-Mart phasing out the use of the smiley in 2006. Despite that, Walmart sued an online parodist for alleged "trademark infringement" after he used the symbol. The District Court found in favor of
15100-484: The ideograms designed in the 1960s and 1970s, continuing with the yellow and black design. The earliest known use of "smiley" as an adjective for "having a smile " or "smiling" in print was in 1848. James Russell Lowell used the line "All kin' o' smily roun' the lips" in his poem The Courtin’ . According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary the earliest known use of "smiley face" for "a line drawing of
15251-550: The interlocking toy bricks in 1949. Moulding is done in Denmark, Hungary, Mexico, and China. Brick decorations and packaging are done at plants in the former three countries and in the Czech Republic. Annual production of the bricks averages approximately 36 billion, or about 1140 elements per second. One of Europe's biggest companies, Lego is the largest toy manufacturer in the world by sales. As of July 2015 , 600 billion Lego parts had been produced. Lego maintains
15402-454: The introduction of Blacktron, and the new subtheme based on space exploration was given the name "Futuron". The new line kept the logo aesthetic and the white and blue color scheme that were used in the later years of "Classic" Space but redesigned its minifigures. They came in four colors (red, blue, yellow, and black) and had a new design with a zipper crossing from hip to shoulder with the color above and white below. These figures also featured
15553-419: The introduction of Space Police to oppose Blacktron since the themes of police and robbers were popular sellers in its Lego Town theme. The Space Police sets had a black, blue, and transparent red color scheme. The minifigures shared the torso design with the black Futuron minifigure but included a transparent red visor. This would be the first time that Lego had a "bad guy", "good guy", and "civilian" faction,
15704-496: The largest model ever created, made of over 5 million bricks, was displayed in New York City; a one-to-one scale model of a Star Wars X-wing fighter . Other record breakers include a 34-metre (112 ft) tower and a 4 km (2.5 mi) railway. In February 2015, marketing consulting company Brand Finance ranked Lego as the "world's most powerful brand", overtaking Ferrari . While Lego has generally been considered
15855-462: The line "Upon my ruins (smiling yet :)". Journalist Levi Stahl has suggested that this may have been an intentional "orthographic joke", while this occurrence is likely merely the colon placed inside parentheses rather than outside of them as is standard typographic practice today: "(smiling yet):". There are citations of similar punctuation in a non-humorous context, even within Herrick's own work. It
16006-647: The market. In October 1971 Loufrani trademarked his design in France while working as a journalist for the French newspaper France Soir . Today, the smiley face has evolved from an ideogram into a template for communication and use in written language. The internet smiley began with Scott Fahlman in the 1980s when he first theorized ASCII characters could be used to create faces and demonstrate emotion in text. Since then, Fahlman's designs have become digital pictograms known as emoticons . They are loosely based on
16157-543: The minifigures were redesigned with new uniforms and a new logo. It also replaced the widespread interchangeability of Blacktron I with mostly uniform cockpit globes, which could be switched unimpeded between ships in other sets within the theme. However, only four sets of eleven featured them (the Alpha Centauri Outpost, Spectral Starguider, Aerial Intruder, and the Allied Avenger). The following year Space Police
16308-406: The most iconic version. In 1967, Seattle graphic artist George Tenagi drew his own version at the request of advertising agent, David Stern. Tenagi's design was used in a Seattle-based University Federal Savings & Loan advertising campaign. Lee Adams's lyrics inspired the "Put on a Happy Face" ad campaign from the musical Bye Bye Birdie . Stern, the man behind this campaign, also incorporated
16459-501: The mouth of the smiley. In 2022, Assouline published "50 Years of Good News," a breakdown of the cultural development of the smiley and its use. In 2022, the International Day of Happiness was celebrated by projecting a smiley onto a number of landmarks around the globe. In Seoul , South Korea , a smiley celebrating happiness was projected onto The Seoul Tower . In 1997, Franklin Loufrani attempted to trademark rights to
16610-742: The name was taken from a paper by Seymour Papert , a computer scientist and educator who developed the educational theory of constructionism , and whose research was at times funded by the Lego Group . The programmable Lego brick which was at the heart of these robotics sets underwent several updates and redesigns, with the last being called the 'EV3' brick, being sold under the name of Lego Mindstorms EV3. The set included various sensors such as touch, light, sound and ultrasonic waves, with several others being sold separately, including an RFID reader. The programmable brick could be programmed using official software available for Windows and Mac computers. In
16761-418: The near future. In order to leave, they must fight dangerous creatures and dig up crystals that they can use to power their rocket. The theme had almost all the gimmicks previous space themes had had, along with an interesting color scheme of old dark gray, teal, and yellow. The theme is often compared to Power Miners . Life on Mars is a space theme released in 2001, around a time of increased curiosity about
16912-581: The next decade. The Insectoids theme featured robotic vehicles built to resemble giant insects. The theme included pieces with light and sound functions and magnets. The alien cyborg minifigures in Insectoids were Lego's second alien-looking race after those in UFO. While the theme's story varied between regions, it generally involved the theme's aliens landing on a planet filled with giant bugs and disguising themselves and their spaceships as bugs to survive and collect "energy orbs", which could be interacted with in
17063-399: The next rank. The website had a built-in inbox which allowed users to send pre-written messages to one another. The Lego Network included automated non-player characters within called "Networkers", who were able to do things which normal users could not do, sending custom messages, and selling masterpieces and blueprints. The site also had modules which were set up on the user's page that gave
17214-524: The night sky. The UFOs are finally identified as aliens in saucer-shaped spacecraft who are abducting humans and draining them of their brainpower for fuel in their spaceships, which resemble the classic UFO line of space. Panic breaks out worldwide, and the Alien Defense Unit takes up the cause. Using their ubiquitous blue vehicles, they fight back against the aliens, stopping abductions in their tracks... 2013's space-specific theme Galaxy Squad features
17365-459: The number of science-fiction-inspired designs grew, the basic pattern of ground-buggies, walking robots, spaceships, and bases developed. Sets were still simplistic and included minifigure pilots steering their spacecraft with [steering wheels and rocket engines as simple cones affixed to fence pieces, visor -less helmets, and often no in-flight pilot protection other than a spacesuit. The first minifigures released in this theme in 1978 wore either
17516-593: The omnibus edition of the Watchmen comic book series is a smiley badge, worn by the character the Comedian, with blood splattered on it from the murder which initiates the events of the story. In the DC Comics , shady businessman " Boss Smiley " (a political boss with a smiley face for a head) makes several appearances. As music genres began to create their own cultures from the 1970s onwards, many cultures began to incorporate
17667-451: The parodist when in March 2008, the judge concluded that Walmart's smiley face logo was not shown to be " inherently distinctive " and that it "has failed to establish that the smiley face has acquired secondary meaning or that it is otherwise a protectable trademark" under U.S. law . In June 2010, Walmart and The Smiley Company founded by Loufrani settled their 10-year-old dispute in front of
17818-573: The plastic cannot be re-used in Lego bricks, it is processed and sold on to industries that can make use of it. Lego, in 2018, set a self-imposed 2030 deadline to find a more eco-friendly alternative to the ABS plastic. Manufacturing of Lego bricks occurs at several locations around the world. Moulding is done in Billund , Denmark; Nyíregyháza , Hungary; Monterrey , Mexico; and most recently in Jiaxing , China. Brick decorations and packaging are done at plants in
17969-412: The players usually build the playing board out of Lego bricks and then play with Lego-style players. Examples of the games include "Minotaurus", in which players roll dice to move characters within a brick-build labyrinth, "Creationary", in which players must build something which appears on a card, or "Ramses Pyramid", in which players collect gems and climb up a customizable pyramid. Like many board games,
18120-455: The red planet. The theme revolved around the concept of lifeforms that could possibly exist on Mars. This was the first theme to feature two types of minifigures: Martian aliens (native to Mars) and human astronauts. The sets depict peaceful coexistence between the two species on the planet Mars. The Life on Mars theme pioneered several unique aspects of Lego. It used a pneumatic pump system capable of sending Martian minifigures through tubes in
18271-491: The rights to the smiley face in over 100 countries. It has become one of the top 100 licensing companies globally. There was a smile fad in 1971 in the United States . The Associated Press (AP) ran a wirephoto showing Joy P. Young and Harvey Ball holding the design of the smiley and reported on September 11, 1971 that "two affiliated insurance companies" claimed credit for the symbol and Harvey Ball designed it; Bernard and Murray Spain claimed credit for introducing it to
18422-414: The rockets launched by the larger vehicles or their base. This was also the first space theme to have a named character (Commander Cold) and a female minifigure. In 1994 Spyrius replaced Blacktron as the "bad" faction, with sets designed around spying and infiltration. The set designs were mostly red and black, with transparent blue canopies. Most spaceships in this theme were shaped like flying saucers, and
18573-422: The sets via their magnetic stickers. Rock Raiders is a theme released in 1999 which is all about mining. The story is about a team of astronauts crashing on a seemingly barren planet after their ship is sucked into a wormhole and spit out in a faraway galaxy. When their ship crashes directly into the planet's crust, an event that resulted in all their fuel being lost, they realize they are stuck on this planet for
18724-501: The side of a grenade, which is something that became synonymous with the Battlefield series. The 1987 Atari ST game MIDI Maze , released on other platforms as Faceball 2000 , features round, yellow Smileys as enemies. When a player is eliminated, these enemies taunt the player with the phrase " Have a nice day ." During the London 2012 opening ceremony , early on in the show a number of giant yellow beach balls were released into
18875-475: The smiley a year later in 1972 across their entire front page for the April edition of the magazine. This was one of the first instances that the smiling face had been adapted, with one of the twenty visible smileys pulling a face. In the United States , there were many instances of smiling faces in the 1900s. However, the first industry to mass adopt the smiley was in comics and cartoons. The logo for and cover of
19026-407: The smiley icon had an 11.8% increase in sales, compared to the standard bottles, with 128 million bottles sold across Europe which featured the smiley-design. In the UK, "Jammie Dodgers", a legendary biscuit line, incorporate the smiley engraved into circular cookies. As part of his early works, graffiti artist Banksy frequently used the smiley in his art. The first of his major works that included
19177-411: The smiley to celebrate Paul Oakenfold 's birthday. This sparked a movement where the smiley moved into various dance genres, becoming a symbol of 1980s dance music. In 2022, David Guetta collaborated with Felix Da Housecat and Kittin to release the song, Silver Screen , a reimagined version of the 2001 dance track. Guetta's version celebrated positivity and happiness. The music video features
19328-821: The space equivalent of a fire brigade. However, for the American market, the faction was depicted as a mining and exploration faction, adapting the names of the sets and the descriptions in the catalogs to reflect this. In catalog pictures and posters, the M:Tron are frequently seen helping Futuron and repairing their vehicles, and the Lego Idea Book 260 features instructions for what appears to be an M:Tron ambulance. The M:Tron theme vehicles are distinctive for their red hulls, grey and black trim, and transparent neon green canopies. They often featured crane-like attachments with magnets for picking up small cargo and toolboxes. These boxes were not interchangeable. The figures wore white trousers,
19479-408: The subsequent few years. The Lego Group's Duplo product line was introduced in 1969 and is a range of blocks whose lengths measure twice the width, height, and depth of standard Lego blocks and are aimed towards younger children. In 1978, Lego produced the first minifigures, which have since become a staple in most sets. In 1997, more than five million Lego pieces were swept into the sea when
19630-587: The theme's heavyweight multi-module spaceship, the Galactic Mediator). In 1993 Ice Planet 2002 took over the civilian role from M:Tron. Based on exploration on an ice planet, sets were designed with skis (both on vehicles and personnel), a blue and white color scheme with transparent neon orange canopies, and transparent neon orange chainsaws. As befitting an icebound theme, most of its vehicles were ground-based, and many of its smaller vehicles also carried satellite dishes , seemingly to track or communicate with
19781-494: The toy takes place at the Billund headquarters, where the company employs approximately 120 designers. The company also has smaller design offices in the UK , Spain , Germany , and Japan which are tasked with developing products aimed specifically at their respective national markets. The average development period for a new product is around twelve months, split into three stages. The first
19932-413: The use of a smiley face. He used it to highlight the good news parts of the newspaper France Soir . He simply called the design "Smiley" and launched The Smiley Company . In 1996 Loufrani's son Nicolas Loufrani took over the family business and built it into a multinational corporation . Nicolas Loufrani was outwardly skeptical of Harvey Ball 's claim to creating the first smiley face. While noting that
20083-562: The user items, or that displayed picture compositions. My Lego network closed in 2015. Before My Lego Network, there were Lego Club Pages, which essentially held the same purpose, although the design lacked complex interaction. Merlin Entertainments operates eight Legoland amusement parks , the original in Billund , Denmark, the second in Windsor , England, the third in Günzburg , Germany,
20234-567: The very well-received Lego Marvel Super Heroes game, featuring New York City as the overworld and including Marvel characters from the Avengers , the Fantastic Four , the X-Men , and more. In 2014, Lego created a game based on The Lego Movie , due to its popularity. Lego Games launched in 2009, was a series of Lego-themed board games designed by Cephas Howard and Reiner Knizia in which
20385-515: The white and transparent blue canopies of Futuron with the Exploriens theme. Sets are known for using large, open structures and special image elements (e.g., as foil-holograph stickers for viewscreens). The Exploriens were searching, evidently, for fossils, and certain flat plates contained triple images: one in white, for the naked eye; one in blue, for viewing under transparent red scanners; and one in red, for viewing under transparent blue scanners. It
20536-616: The word "thanks" and a smiling face above it. The face contained a lot of detail, having eyebrows, nose, teeth, chin, and facial creases reminiscent of "man-in-the-Moon" style characteristics. Franklin Loufrani used the word smiley when he designed a smiling face for the newspaper he was working for at the time. The Loufrani design came in 1971, when Loufrani designed a smiley face for the newspaper, France-Soir . The newspaper used Loufrani's smiley to highlight stories that they defined as "feel-good news." This particular smiley went onto form The Smiley Company . Mad magazine notably used
20687-653: The world was in Sydney, Australia, in 1984. Located in the Birkenhead Point Outlet Centre it was not only the first dedicated Lego retail outlet, but it also had displays including many iconic Australian items such as the Holden FJ, Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the Sydney Opera House as well as buildings from Amsterdam, dinosaurs and an English Village. Known as The LEGO Centre, Birkenhead Point, the store closed in
20838-582: The world. The international RoboCup Junior football competition involved extensive use of Lego Mindstorms equipment which was often pushed to its extreme limits. The capabilities of the Mindstorms range have also been harnessed for use in the Iko Creative Prosthetic System, a prosthetic limbs system designed for children. Designs for these Lego prosthetics allow everything from mechanical diggers to laser-firing spaceships to be screwed on to
20989-669: Was Botball , a national U.S. middle - and high-school competition stemming from the MIT 6.270 Lego robotics tournament. Other Lego robotics competitions include FIRST LEGO League Discover for children ages 4–6, FIRST LEGO League Explore for students ages 6–9 and FIRST Lego League Challenge for students ages 9–16 (age 9–14 in the United States, Canada, and Mexico). These programs have offered real-world engineering challenges to participants using LEGO-based robots to complete tasks. In its 2019–2020 season, there were 38,609 FIRST LEGO League Challenge teams and 21,703 FIRST LEGO League Explore teams around
21140-444: Was also revived, becoming Space Police II, to oppose the new Blacktron. The set designs featured black and grey with transparent green canopies and red trim. The jail cells from the original were retained, though only three vehicles could accept them. The theme also lacked a permanent installation like Space Police I's Space Lock-Up Isolation Base. It was the first Space theme to replace the standard Lego smiley face minifigure head with
21291-439: Was created in 1936. Christiansen created the motto, still used today, to encourage his employees never to skimp on quality, a value he believed in strongly. By 1951, plastic toys accounted for half of the company's output, even though the Danish trade magazine Legetøjs-Tidende ("Toy Times"), visiting the Lego factory in Billund in the early 1950s, wrote that plastic would never be able to replace traditional wooden toys. Although
21442-433: Was directly succeeded by Lego Ultra Agents . In Monster Fighters, the team activated a beam that attracted a swarm of bugs, leading to the events of Galaxy Squad, where, after the big battle, Solomon Blaze returned to Earth, thus creating the events of Ultra Agents. Lego Ideas released a non-licensed set based on the Classic Space line in 2014, the 21109 Exo Suit, which includes two minifigures in green suits printed with
21593-606: Was famous for experimenting with the form of his writing, amongst other things. In a letter sent to publisher Ernst Bojesen in December 1900, he includes both a happy and sad face. It was in the 1900s that the design evolved from a basic eye and mouth design into a more recognizable design. Another early commercial use of a smiling face was in 1922 when the Gregory Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio, ran an ad for "smiley face" balloons in The Billboard . This smiley face had hair,
21744-538: Was found by a team of archaeologists led by Nicolò Marchetti of the University of Bologna . Marchetti and his team pieced together fragments of a Hittite pot from approximately 1700 BC found in Karkamış , Turkey . Once the pot had been pieced together, the team noticed that the item had a large smiling face engraved on it, becoming the first item with such a design to be found. The Danish poet and author Johannes V. Jensen
21895-878: Was further pushed by the release of The Lego Movie and the reality series Lego Masters . By 2024, nearly 15% of the sets released in the U.S. were aimed for adult builders. Lego pieces of all varieties constitute a universal system. Despite variations in the design and the purposes of individual pieces over the years, each remains compatible in some way with existing pieces. Lego bricks from 1958 still interlock with those made presently, and Lego sets for young children are compatible with those made for teenagers. Six bricks of 2 × 4 studs can be combined in 915,103,765 ways. Each piece must be manufactured to an exacting degree of precision. When two pieces are engaged, they must fit firmly, yet be easily disassembled. The machines that manufacture Lego bricks have tolerances as small as 10 micrometres . Primary concept and development work for
22046-581: Was included in Unicode 's Miscellaneous Symbols from version 1.1 (1993). Later additions to Unicode included a large number of variants expressing a range of human emotions, in particular with the addition of the " Emoticons " and " Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs blocks in Unicode versions 6.0 (2010) and 8.0 (2015), respectively. These were introduced for compatibility with the ad-hoc implementation of emoticons by Japanese telephone carriers in unused ranges of
22197-513: Was released for the Lego City brand. In 2021, an animated series titled Lego Monkie Kid was released to support the Lego brand of the same name. Smiley A smiley , sometimes called a smiley face , is a basic ideogram representing a smiling face . Since the 1950s, it has become part of popular culture worldwide, used either as a standalone ideogram or as a form of communication, such as emoticons . The smiley began as two dots and
22348-644: Was surpassed by a 5,922-piece Taj Mahal . A redesigned Millennium Falcon retook the top spot in 2017 with 7,541 pieces. Since then, the Millennium Falcon has been superseded by the Lego Art World Map at 11,695 pieces, the Lego Titanic at 9,090 pieces, and the Lego Architect Colosseum at 9,036 pieces. In 2022, Lego introduced its Eiffel Tower . The set consists of 10,000 parts and reaches
22499-588: Was the only set not to feature a spacecraft, while the Robo Master's small starcraft strongly resembled the Unitron Star Hawk II as a tribute to the fan favorite set. Roboforce "Robos" were powered by "secret" "robo disks", which were oddly enough rectangle -shaped power sources. The theme was only released in North America. UFO was the first Lego space theme to feature non-human-looking aliens . All of
22650-402: Was the second space theme to include a robot minifigure; some also considered this the second space theme to include a female minifigure, a feminine robot named Ann Droid. The android head was taken over by Spyrius. The theme shares many similarities with the popular Star Trek TV series, with the faction's main focus being on exploration, their robot figure's name being a play on "Android", and
22801-457: Was used for a smiling face was in late 1962, when New York City radio station WMCA released a yellow sweatshirt as part of a marketing campaign. By 1963, over 11,000 sweatshirts had been given away. They had featured in Billboard magazine and numerous celebrities had also been pictured wearing them, including actress Patsy King and Mick Jagger . The radio station used the happy face as part of
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