30secondTHOUGHTS: THE LEGO STORY

For eighty years to date, Lego has been in the forefront of honing children's imagination, literally allowing generations of kids to build bricks and create a make-believe world of boundless possibilities. In celebration of the toy brand's birthday, the Lego Group recently released a 17-minute short animated film that narrates the company's history - its humble beginnings as a carpentry workshop set by its founder Ole Kirk Christiansen, the origins of the brand name, the trials of the start-up company, and Lego's eventual transition into a household name for children's toys.

Ad Title: THE LEGO STORY
In-House: The Lego Group

My first Lego was a ten-piece miniature set given as a freebie from a Jolly Kiddie Meal. Back then, it was a big thing for me to own a Lego. I vividly recall that I had to constantly remind my mother that I have to complete the set - a request which, being that at that time I was the (slightly spoiled) only child, my mother granted.

So I had the complete transportation Lego freebies - the battleship, the airplane, the automobile. I played with the Lego set together with my other toys for hours. I would experiment with the bricks and transform them into an accumulated mass of a make-shift building, a customized Power Rangers Zord or whatever my playful imagination dictated. For an adult, Lego was a just a group of play bricks placed together but for the younger self, it was the physical equivalent of the object that was represented inside my mind.

I also had this habit that every new toy purchased had to sleep by my side during that first night - sort of my puerile version of the "first night together as a couple", albeit platonic.  And the Lego set was no exception.

Ad Series: IMAGINE
Ad Agency: FCB South Africa
Client: Lego

Looking back, I have to say that Lego did play an important role into shaping the way I see things now - how I visualize images more than the physical, how I interpret the arrangements of the universe more than its literal sense, how I imagine.

Thank you Lego! May you continue to inspire countless generations to imagine and to become creatives in their own rights. Thank you Lego for letting me...

...Imagine!