Early news of the Bricklink Designer Program came in December. The initiative aims to crowdfund past LEGO® Ideas that reached the 10k milestone but did not make the coveted set production phase. LEGO® Ideas can only make four or five new sets a year. However, crowdfunding through Bricklink offers the potential for many more. Today, the LEGO® Group announced the latest Bricklink Designer Program update.
We now know that the Bricklink Designer Program invited 31 former 10K ideas from 27 AFOL designers to partake. The program does not include past IP-based concepts. According to the press release, this program cannot release sets based on others’ intellectual property. Of the 31 invited submissions, 13 will see the light of day. Bricklink will sell instructions for the remaining sets that do not make the top 13.
31 former 10k LEGO® Ideas submissions are already in the running.
The race to reach the top 13 is already underway. First, invited designers must redesign their original concepts in Bricklink Studio to meet production feasibility guidelines. For example, sets must conform to the current brick color pallet and must have a total brick count in between 400 and 4000 bricks. Second, each concept must pass a rigorous test building. All of this takes place before May 31. Only ideas that pass the test build progress to the next stage.
The second phase begins June 1 and runs through August 10, 2021. This is the crowdfunding stage. At this point, Bricklink will reveal the sets that passed the test build and are theoretically possible as LEGO® sets. Consequently, you can show your support by taking part in crowdfunding your favorite ideas. The first 13 sets to reach their crowdfunding goals will become Bricklink Designer Program kits. Production of the winning sets is slated to begin in September 2021. Only those who pre-ordered through crowdfunding will get a set.
What are the 31 designs?
For more information, visit the official Bricklink Designer Program page. Otherwise, we must wait until June for the next Bricklink Designer Program update. Are there any ideas here you are excited to see? I can see more than one on this list that I voted for in the past. Feel free to comment below or reach out on social media.
Until next time,
-Tom
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Most of those sets look like they’d end up huge. So impressive what people can build.
I love the derelict house. That’s my favourite by a mile.
Great that Bricklink gives these ideas a second shot.
Yeah, they look both big and amazing. We’ll see how they end up since designers need to rework them a bit.