Imagine you work at LEGO. A Swedish man, with shoulder length hair, a rugged beard down to his chest and clad in knickers (hiking gear) shows up asking to speak to the head honcho, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen. The man says his name is Dent-de-Lion du Midi or “Dandi” for short. He says he has an idea to share with the company. Do you grant him access? Of course not!
Well that doesn't stop Dandi. He manages to charm two technicians from the audiovisual department to watch a clip of his 3-D modelled LEGO idea. They’re impressed. He follows with a pitch to turn physical LEGO bricks into a digital format; a database of high quality renderings of ALL the LEGO Group’s product portfolio. Why? Because if this is done; any LEGO design team will be able to quickly create “digital versions of the physical kits, as well as 3-D LEGO cartoons, films, building instructions, television ads and other marketing collateral.” Essentially, a virtual building and testing system—which was a no-brainer. In May 1995 the executives at LEGO authorised Dandi to work with a team of coders and graphics professionals to begin R&D under the name: The Darwin Project. The team grew rapidly to 120 people!
By 1996, Dandi’s team wowed the crowd at the worlds largest graphics conference SIGGRAPH with a virtual reality, LEGO version of New Orleans—where the event was held. At the execs dinner, Kjeld stood up and told the Darwin Team, “You people are the future of the company”.
Marvellous!
Just goes to show, you never know where your best ideas can come from.
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Just goes to show, you never know where your best ideas can come from.
If you enjoyed the article, let me know what you think below and SUBSCRIBE
Brick by Brick Paperback – 6 March 2014
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Dent-de-Lion du Midi, I would love to spend some time chatting with you.
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