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Lettering with LEGO using new tile shapes

by Thita (admin) on June 28, 2017

As I mentioned a number of times before, one of my favorite LEGO blogs is New Elementary, run by British LEGO fan Tim Johnson (a.k.a. caperberry). Tim focuses on analyzing new LEGO pieces (thus the name of the blog) to discover their full potential. He looks at everything; shapes, colors, connection-points, compatibility, interaction with other pieces, and more. The articles are very interesting and helpful, especially for those who like to work on their own creations. Tim also encourages LEGO fans to share their own discoveries via various collaborations, like the most recently completed LEGO Lettering Contest. 🙂

The LEGO Lettering Contest was inspired by all the new curved and angled tiles that LEGO added to their parts-inventory in the past couple of years. Looking at these new pieces, one of the most obvious applications that come to mind is using them for lettering. Thus, Tim challenged the LEGO fan community to participate in a friendly competition to come up with various LEGO font types.

The only rule for the contest was to utilize at least one of the new LEGO tile pieces pictured above; the 2×2 Macaroni Round Corner Tile, the 1×1 Half Circle Round Tile (often used for LEGO creatures as teeth), the 1×1 Quarter Circle Round Tile (also referred to as pizza slice or watermelon slice), the 4×4 Macaroni Round Corner Tile, and the 2×2 Modified Square Tile with Cut Corner. Participants only had to spell out LEGO DNA with their letters, although many of the contestants ended up creating an entire alphabet. See contest announcement here: LEGO LETTERING CONTEST

As you can imagine, this contest brought in a lot of creativity. In fact, there were over a hundred entries, which were split up into several batches for easy viewing. You can check out all of the entries at the following links:

As this building event was also a contest, Tim and a couple of other judges eventually had to choose three winners. Eduardo Moreira from Brazil created some really pretty yellow letters with white borders on a blue background. Li Li from the US combined the tiles with some other interesting parts for Gothic-style lettering. And Jeffrey Kong from ArtisanBricks.com in Singapore spelled out LEGO DNA with both regular lettering and Braille. See the all the winning entries here: LEGO LETTERING CONTEST RESULTS

Learning to make various fonts with LEGO is a really fun part of the hobby, and it can also be useful for making signs and other lettering. The new tile pieces definitely make the process a lot easier, as they provide curves and shapes that were not possible before. And, as it has been demonstrated by the entries in this contest, there are so many ways to use the new tiles to create so many different font types. You might even get inspired to make your own!

What do you think? How do you like these LEGO lettering examples? Do you have some favorites? Have you experimented with the new tile pieces yet? Which parts do you find the most useful? Feel free to share in the comment section below! 😉

And you might also like to check out the following related posts:

Fun with the New LEGO Hexagonal Plate
The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide Book (including LEGO fonts)

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Building LEGO furniture – The JOHN Collection

by Thita (admin) on June 27, 2017

in Featured LEGO Creations

If you like to build realistic LEGO houses, you know what a big difference nicely designed furniture can make. It can take a LEGO structure from simply being a toy, to becoming a sophisticated and realistic miniature model. Most official LEGO sets come with simple furniture pieces, however there are some LEGO themes that consistently feature more detailed interiors. If you need inspiration for furniture design, the LEGO Modular Buildings and the LEGO Friends sets are both great resources. 🙂

Assuming that you already have a decent collection of LEGO pieces, you don’t even have to buy any new sets. Just download the instructions for an official LEGO set that has some nice furniture designs and start building! If you are building minifig-scale or slightly larger structures, you don’t need a whole lot of parts; a few plates, a few tiles, some interesting little bits and pieces, and you can make some very impressive furniture.

And, if you would like even more furniture designs, you can find plenty of ideas within the LEGO fan community. One LEGO fan even took it as far as putting together a whole LEGO furniture catalog, mimicking the look and feel of a real-life IKEA catalog. The JOHN Collection by LEGO fan and graphic designer William Dalton (a.k.a. Johŋ), is a real labor of love that took a year and a half of building, photographing, and graphic design. The end result is a tastefully presented faux IKEA catalog with 18 pages and over one hundred LEGO furniture pieces. Johŋ even had the catalog printed!

The JOHN Collection includes everything from home office furniture, bedroom furniture, kitchen and bathroom décor, garage organizers, commercial furniture, and more. They are all presented in the style of real-life furniture collections with an introduction, creative names for the furniture pieces, and prices in Danish Kroner. In this article I have included some of the pages for your viewing pleasure, and you can also visit Johŋ’s Flickr gallery to view the larger versions, and even more designs.

Really nicely done catalog, isn’t it? I particularly like the tastefully photographed presentation pictures for each of the living spaces. And, of course, the furniture designs are really creative as well, taking advantage of the interesting shapes and textures of some of the smallest LEGO elements. If you would like to use some of these designs in your own LEGO buildings, the pictures are large enough that you should be able out the pieces used and how they were built. If you get stuck, you can ask Johŋ via his flickr gallery. And if you need even further ideas, The LEGO Neighborhood Book and The LEGO Ideas Book series have some really nice furniture designs.

What do you think? Do you like making interesting LEGO furniture pieces? And how do you like the ones featured here? Are there any other designs that you really like? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below! 😉

And you might also like to check out the following related posts:

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Lettering with LEGO using new tile shapes

Building LEGO furniture – The JOHN Collection

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