I was reading something very exciting the other day on Tim Johnson’s LEGO blog called New Elementary. Tim’s focus is on new LEGO elements and exploring their use, which is interesting enough, however even more intriguing is that recently Tim became the member of a team of LEGO fans who are working on the packing and marketing of the upcoming LEGO CUUSOO Exo Suit set. 🙂
Peter Reid (the creator of the original LEGO Exo Suit) worked with LEGO designer Mark Stafford to redesign the Exo Suit according to LEGO’s own standards of playability and durability, then he pulled together a team of LEGO fans to work along with LEGO’s own employees to explore ideas for packaging and marketing the set.
Tim says the following about how big this is: “Having fans direct your marketing is a fairly radical approach, given that TLG have plenty of expert employees who actually do this shizzle for a living. But TLG’s relationship with their fans has been experimental and interesting ever since they realized in the late ‘90s that Mindstorms hackers could teach them a thing or two, and brought them on board to help develop the next version of the product. Admittedly, we fans would like it if TLG did even more experimental and interesting things with us, but in the grand scheme of things, they’re a pretty forward-thinking company in this regard. Indeed, they’ve never involved fans in the marketing of a set quite as much as they are with the Exo Suit.”
Tim also shares in his blog-post about the meetings their team conducted to come up with ideas. Although he is not allowed to reveal the final design of the set or any specific details, he did mention it should be available sometime in August. This is how the meeting looked like according to Andrew Hamilton (I just love these LEGO Classic Space creations!). 😀
As you probably know already, Peter Reid co-authored a book with Tim Goddard titled LEGO Space: Building the Future (see review here: LEGO Book – LEGO Space: Building the Future), which is one of my most favorite LEGO books. It basically pulls together various LEGO Classic Space themes and brings them together into a cohesive story, while also featuring many amazing LEGO spaceships and other creations built in LEGO Classic Space style. See book on Amazon: LEGO Space: Building the Future
The LEGO Exo Suit is actually featured in this book, and although it didn’t need to be, it was a natural choice to tie the Exo Suit into the LEGO Classic Space universe in its packaging and marketing. And that’s what I’m most excited about. I was already committed to getting this set as soon as it get’s released (I love Peter Reid’s design and I know Mark Stafford is not going to disappoint us either), but now that I know the set will be compatible with LEGO Classis Space, I can’t be happier.
This is actually all really excellent timing, as there is already a huge resurrection of LEGO Classic Space due to The LEGO Movie, and the upcoming LEGO Benny’s Spaceship set. The stars and planets are all aligning for LEGO Classic Space – literally! If you are interested in LEGO Classic Space and the upcoming LEGO Exo Suit set, I highly recommend that you read Tim’s entire blog post. See here: CUUSOO Exo Suit: The Logo.
So what do you think? Are you looking forward to the LEGO Exo Suit set? What do you think of the logo and the tie-in with LEGO Classic Space? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below! 😉
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