The Great Inner Drive to Design or "The Lego Theory"

Since this is my first post (after much delay and procrastination), I have decided that it probably makes sense to start with the basics; The core, the heart, the desire behind every game designer (or aspiring game designer in my case, as in many others).

This undeniable urge to create something original, to put a piece of ourselves in our creation, exists in every man and woman on the face of this earth! We may not all be artists or designers professionally, but we are all artists and designers emotionally.

Legos, one of the most popular, if not the most popular and highest-grossing toy of all time, has been a best-seller with children for over 75 years....75 YEARS! What's the secret? Simply put, Legos provide basic tools to express artistic creativity in limitless forms. That's right, a ten dollar lego set makes you a functioning designer. No wonder we enjoyed growing up with Legos and its countless other knock-offs (Erector sets, K'nex, Mega Bloks) so much.

Even when we get older and grow out of Legos (not all of us; if you've ever been to Lego Land in California you'll see why that's not necessarily a bad thing), we never lose that desire to create, though it may seem much smaller and harder to find, the older we get.

Creativity strives off of the ignorance of reality. The less we know or the less we choose to focus on how the world actually works, the more freedom we have to create. That's why creativity comes so naturally to little kids. They know so little of what actually exists in the world, the universe, politics, money, power, sex, war, love, and hate, yet they have so much to offer in what could exist in the world. They are not afraid to close the gaps of what they don't know and don't understand with creations of their own explanations. The older we get, and the more consumed with reality we become, the easier it is to forget the magic of the unknown and lose that creative spark we were all born with.

When we get older, it is important for us to hold on to this spark, to kindle and tend to it so that it might burst into a flame of creative energy.

Don't stop playing with Legos...