For Some Grown-Ups, Playing With Legos Is a Serious Business

[Ablang]

THE A-HED
NOVEMBER 17, 2011

For Some Grown-Ups, Playing With Legos Is a Serious Business
One Adult Fan Left a Six-Figure Job to Build Models; the $20,000 Apartment

By DANIEL MICHAELS

HOBOKEN, Belgium—Dirk Denoyelle got his first Lego set when he was 7
years old. Today, he has nearly three million pieces. In between, he
earned an engineering degree, learned several languages and became a
stand-up comedian.

Mr. Denoyelle is a proud Adult Fan of Lego, or AFOL, as aficionados call
themselves.
Playing With Legos

See interactive graphics showing Lego artist Nathan Sawaya's sculptures.

View Interactive

More photos and interactive graphics

"Ten years ago, nobody admitted it," said the 47-year-old Belgian,
sitting in his studio next to a giant Lego model of an apartment complex
that a developer here paid him about $20,000 to create. Nearby are
life-size Lego busts of Charlie Chaplin and Michael Jackson and a vast
Lego mosaic depicting a homeless man on a London street.

The artistry of the works—and their fat selling prices—earned Mr.
Denoyelle a prized spot among AFOLs. Three years ago, Lego Group
anointed him a Lego Certified Professional. It's an elite group
consisting of two New York artists, an Australian computer specialist
and just 10 others world-wide.

Meet Dirk Denoyelle. He's one of 13 certified Lego professionals in the
world and he sells his creations for thousands of dollars. WSJ's Daniel
Michaels reports from Hoboken, Belgium.

"I meet a lot of really jealous kids who want my job," says Certified
Professional Sean Kenney, a New Yorker who left a technology job at
Lehman Brothers in 2002 to build Lego models full time. "Their parents
are often really jealous, too."

Parents—including some famous ones like David Beckham—and some childless
adults today brag about the complex Lego models they are building.
Grown-ups forked over more than $1,000 for a recent 5,922-piece Lego Taj
Mahal and equally big bucks for rare vintage kits. Lego is catering to
the booming market with offerings that make youngsters yawn, like bricks
in subtle pastel hues and models of Frank Lloyd Wright houses.

But grown-ups also flood the company with more product feedback than it
can handle and produce Lego-size guns that the company itself won't
make. Lego survived the rise of video games and its own brush with
bankruptcy. Adults present a new hurdle.

"We still see ourselves as a toy company, but the world is challenging
us on that," says Tormod Askildsen, a senior director at Lego
headquarters in Billund, Denmark.
[LEGO] Nathan Sawaya

The New Orleans Public Library commissioned artist Nathan Sawaya to
create 'Rebirth of New Orleans' in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina.

Lego is in contact with about 90 fan groups boasting roughly 70,000
members throughout the world, says Mr. Askildsen. Many of them are
adults with strong opinions.

In Japan, Lego has tested a Web site called Cuusoo that lets users post
their own models and vote on which they would like to see the company
market. It drew an overwhelmingly adult response. A global version
recently went live and now Lego "would like to try to reach a younger
audience," says project manager David Gram.

Some adults are so obsessed with projects at home that "it can tax a
relationship," says Jamie Berard, a Lego senior designer. The company
also has had reports of family feuds arising because parents' sets are
better than their kids'. "We hear conversations about, 'This is Daddy's
Lego,' " Mr. Berard says.

Adults increasingly use Lego in business for graphics, modeling and
education. So many professionals use Lego that the company is rethinking
its Certified Professionals program, which began in 2005, to make it
seem less elitist, says Lego spokesman Andrew Arnold. As of now, the 13
LCPs, who act as goodwill ambassadors, aren't paid by Lego but must
adhere to its strict decency standards, such as no weapons. In return,
they get to buy bricks wholesale.

Lego blocks first appeared in 1958, after Danish wooden-toy maker Ole
Kirk Christiansen began experimenting with plastics. Kids loved them.
For years, Lego packages showed happy children, even Mr. Christiansen's
grandson.

An early sign of maturing came in 1995, when an adult fan modified
sophisticated design software to create a virtual-Lego program, LDraw.
In 1998, Lego introduced Mindstorms, a line of robot-building kits with
motors, sensors and small programmable computers. It was aimed at kids
under 13, but more than half its buyers were over 20, says Mr. Askildsen.

Then Lego learned that adults were hacking Mindstorms software to soup
up robots. "We asked internally, do we sue them or embrace it?" says Mr.
Arnold. Lego embraced it.

Five years later, Lego almost went bankrupt because it dumbed down kits
by using big, preformed pieces that sapped creativity and alienated
users, officials say. Lego managers admit they belatedly learned a
lesson of childhood: Grownups often know what they're talking about.
Related

Scene: Lego Movie to Film in Australia

"Fans tried to tell us we were on the wrong track, but we said, These
are adults and we're a toy company," recalls Mr. Askildsen. "Until then,
Lego was a pretty closed, arrogant company."

Another valuable realization was that adults have bigger piggie banks
than kids do. "I would struggle to find occasions where a child could
get a $500 Millennium Falcon" from Lego's Star Wars series, says Mr.
Berard. Family-owned Lego Group last year posted a net profit of 3.7
billion Danish kroner ($670 million) on revenue of 16.0 billion kroner,
compared to a loss of 1.1 billion kroner on revenue of 8.4 billion
kroner in 2003.

Lego began seeking adult advice through representatives it called "Lego
Ambassadors." Today it has 70 of them. Around the same time, Lego began
naming Certified Professionals.

Mr. Kenney in New York was one of the first. "I left a nice six-figure
job and all I wanted to do was go build a model with Lego," he recalls.
Today, he makes at least as much money from adult clients including
Marriott International, which this year commissioned models of several
hotels.

Adult fans are also a boon for Nathan Sawaya, another Certified
Professional from New York, who practiced corporate law until 2004 and
now has exhibits in art museums. His creations are chic gifts for
celebrities and "the person who has everything," he says.

Even in Old Europe, Lego is graying. Mr. Denoyelle, the Belgian
comedian, who uses a Lego sculpture in one routine, says that an adult
fan recently approached him after a show to talk bricks.

"It's getting much easier to admit," he says.

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