The Anatomy of LEGO Boxes
Ever wonder what goes into creating the packaging we covet on a shelf until the dust settles or tear into on the car ride home from the store? What sort of rules do designers have to follow before they’re allowed to run wild with their ideas? There’s more to the process of designing box art for LEGO packaging than you’re likely aware of. You’ll discover a new world of marketing and packaging design that will unbox and delight your inner nerd!
The inspiration for this article came from laying the box for 75359 332nd Ahsoka’s Clone Trooper Battle Pack out flat to store it. This is as far as I got with the digital recreation of the packaging. It appears the promotional and supporting assets for any given set can be either exact or slightly modified versions of what is seen on the packaging, which may in itself shed light on different earlier iterations of the box.
Upon seeing the unfolded box net, I thought I could learn a thing or two, given that my professional work entails packaging design. To help illustrate some of what I’ve learned, I’ve recreated as much of the box as I could using assets I had access to online. This process helped me to discover there are certain parameters and rules that all packaging needs to align with. Let’s take a look at what those rules are.
Rules To Align With
An important task once the designer is given dielines (the placeholders used to assist in the layout of graphics) is to set up a margin of 5mm for all critical assets on the box. Outside of some of the largest boxes where this would be too narrow and the figure is doubled, we’re looking at an almost guaranteed margin of 5mm away from any edge to ensure that each box looks consistent and clean across each of the six faces. These margins also ensure that box art is consistent across a theme’s line of sets when they’re displayed on a shelf alongside one another.
The next thing to cover would naturally be placing the big red “LEGO” square onto as many faces of the box as is appropriate! There must always be a section of clear space equal to one fifth of the width of the LEGO logo for to be place on the box, regardless of whether the set comes from a license theme or in-house property. Since in this case the logo was 20mm across, the 4mm clear space is trumped by the 5mm margin rule anyway.
I have no words for this, just mild discomfort, But I Still love Galidor! (Image courtesy of Brickset)
Historically speaking, neither of these have been a hard and fast rule for the company. When The LEGO Group wanted a theme to speak for the product rather than the LEGO brand, you get things like Galidor’s product packaging where the hierarchy of information dictates that LEGO is merely the provider of this wonderful toy, and that Galidor is the cool new thing you should be focusing on.
It’s probably not fair to use Galidor as an example given its more experimental nature, but you can tell the difference now, can’t you?
Seeing Is Believing
The banner artwork at the top of each box is often an ever-changing asset. If you followed my LEGO typography series, you’d have seen all the amazing variations on the uniform design language across even the most basic themes. Star Wars is no stranger to an of uniform design evolution. Every new wave of sets has a striking new graphic adorning the box to help define the time in which that particular wave of sets was released.
IMAGE COURTESY OF REDDIT USER SOME-MATHEMATICIAN56
If you’re a fan of Ninjago, designer Mike Rayhawk briefly touched on some of the packaging work he’s done for the theme.
IMAGE COURTESY OF MIKE RAYHAWK
Focus on the Product Itself
Of course on the front of any LEGO set’s box the set itself must be featured. Throughout its history, The LEGO Group has used a range of techniques to achieve the best depiction of what the customer is buying: hand-inked linework, gouache painting and just plain old photography.
With the increase in workflow speed and the evolution of technology, designers then had the ability to use placeholder renders. Mocked-up packaging could be shown to photographers who could more accurately capture the set with less communication between departments if things didn’t quite align or meet standards.
Here’s an example of a preliminary box used for retail planogram purposes (the placement of a product on a shelf) versus the image used in the final box art. The photographer was able to get a near-perfect match for the pose laid out in the early artwork.
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The LEGO Movie brought about new levels of accuracy when it comes to photorealistic renders of LEGO bricks with sub-surface scattering, micro-scratches, minor surface warping and other imperfections that create a lifelike replica of the bricks we’re familiar with.
All of the investment into photo-realistic renders for The LEGO Movie didn’t go to waste. With the design workflow for packaging shifted entirely to a computer generated process. It’s amazing to think that an image like this is no longer a photograph. Pim Hendriks has a few more examples on their Artstation page!
IMAGE COURTESY OF PIM HENDRIKS, ARTSTATION
One honorable mention I’d like to make is a personal favorite: Exo Force. A mix of rendered set images, digital and traditionally illustrated artwork, and superb art direction was crucial to capturing the manga/anime inspired aesthetic. The mixed media of the art style Exo Force referenced had to be carried out in the packaging. What resulted was a truly unique style to the packaging, complete with a technical rundown on the various mechs and a small comic to set the tone of the story for you. This all came together supporting an exhilaratingly detailed cover artwork that just leaps of the page of every box in the line. To me this is peak LEGO packaging creativity.
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Universally Understood
While a box may have a localized design for the country it is sold in, what can be done for people whose first language is not the language spoken in that country?
This is A FASCINATING LITTLE DIVE INTO LINGUISTICS WHEN LOOKING CLOSELY.
In a previous article I briefly covered Cera Pro, the fantastic brand font The LEGO Group uses for the vast majority of its retail communication needs. To reiterate, one of the typeface’s strong suits is the variety of glyphs available for European languages. With just under 1000 glyphs covering Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and other localized letterforms, Cera Pro can be used for most regions in which LEGO sets are sold.
LOOK AT ALL THOSE DIACRITICS!
For the languages which Cera Pro cannot cover, Noto Sans thankfully fills in the blanks. The Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Arabic characters are all included so that nearly anyone looking at the box can read one key piece of information: the set name!
Globally Recognized
There is still another group of additions, which all have their own rules regarding minimum size, margins, and the like. That consists of all of the certifications and legislated environmental symbols.
On any given LEGO set, you’ll likely find the following:
CE Mark - ‘Conformité Européenne’, the European Conformity mark indicates that the manufacturer or importer affirms the goods' conformity with European health, safety, and environmental protection standards. The CE mark required for goods to be sold in the European Economic Area.
UKCA Mark - ‘UK Conformity Assessed’, the UKCA mark was meant to replace the CE mark for goods sold in the United Kingdom after Brexit in 2020, however both marks are currently accepted.
G-Mark - The Gulf Conformity mark is a certification indicating the product conforms to all technical regulations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, covering Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. In this case, it is mandatory for toys.
MC Mark - The Malaysia Conformity mark is a regulatory mark specific to toys supplied to the Malaysian market to ensure the toy is safe.
Recycling Codes - Internationally recognized symbols to allow consumers to readily identify recyclable materials within their purchases. In this instance, 21-PAP refers to non-corrugated cardboard (the box) while 22-PAP refers to just plain paper (the instructions).
Info-Tri - The French recycling initiative banner is now a mandatory inclusion for products sold in France (and to a lesser extent, Italy it seems). It depicts what can be recycled and where to. From personal experience the symbols depicting the box, bags and instructions have to be a certain size and stroke width, very heavily controlled!
‘Pura/Kami Māku’ - Japanese-specific recycling marks split up much like the international recycling codes, with the circular symbol for paper, and the square for plastic (pura = plastic, māku = mark).
Green Dot - The Green dot is a bit of an outlier here, being mandatory in some European countries but completely voluntary in others, purely indicating that the producer has invested money in an effort to reduce packaging waste, or paid fees to cover the cost of recycling packaging.
FSC certification - The Forestry Stewardship Council ‘Mix’ certification dictates that the product or packaging is made from a mixture of materials from FSC-certified forests, recycled materials, and/or FSC-controlled wood.
Choking Hazard - The graphic ‘EN 71-6’ is legally required for all toys sold in the European Union.
Each of these symbols represent the quality, environmental responsibility and social concerns The LEGO Group strives to uphold. In some cases they’re mandatory to allow sales of the product in a given country, so it’s good to get them all correct. Once a certain sized box is designed regardless of theme, these symbols are likely to remain in place, removing the difficulty of ensuring these symbols are accurately placed on every new product that box size.
The Final Hurdles
Once all of the legality is taken care of, there also comes the seemingly insurmountable but still achievable task of ensuring this new set is able to be catalogued, organized, stored, retrieved, shipped, purchased and enjoyed. Gotta codify everything!
A GTIN-13 barcode (previously EAN-13) will cover most bases for retail sales of the product. A string of random, algorithmically generated numbers within a given range are created dedicated to The LEGO Group. With these codes, The LEGO Group can generate a barcode graphic that can be scanned in a retail setting. The barcode graphic is paired with an item number for the set so that all parties have a way to identify what product they have in their hands.
There’s even an item number and barcode for the box itself. After all, the box needs to be treated like its very own LEGO element. I would assume the box barcode, hidden when the box is glued, is scanned by whatever machine aids in packing the boxes.
The final piece of the puzzle is the data matrix and accompanying codes. It is not, as our April Fools joke would suggest, the set’s expiration date. These are instead for quality assurance purposes and identify when the set was assembled in-factory. The 5 digit number/letter combo code can be understood as follows: Day (1) - Week (48) - Factory (g) - Year (3). The factory letter is a slightly elusive system, but so far some of the locations identified are:
H = Nyíregyháza, Hungary
R = Ciénega de Flores, Mexico
S = Kladno, Czech Republic
Q = Purkersdorf, Austria
G = Jiaxing, China
The set I referenced for the artwork must then have been produced on November 27th, the first day of the 48th week, assembled in the Jiaxing factory in 2023. That’s satisfyingly specific!
Packing Things Up
We are just scratching the surface of what the LEGO packaging designers need to consider when creating the feeling you get walking into the toy aisles! It’s a lot to take care of; and when all is said and done, what we notice is more important than these things we often overlook.
Photo via LEGO House
Nevertheless, I hope this article has shed some light on something you’ve wondered about. After all, great packaging is about thinking outside the box.
What are your favorite examples of LEGO box designs? Got a soft spot for a particular theme’s box art? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
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