We are an international LEGO design agency that works primarily with corporate clients to create unique and engaging LEGO sets. These can be anything from small giveaways to large display installations.
Our passion is to inspire everyone to think of LEGO as far more than a toy but as a way to express creativity, promote play, and connect with their audience in an immersive, hands-on way. By sharing with our corporate clients all the ways LEGO can be used as employee gifts, marketing campaigns, corporate workshops, etc., we aim to provide a fresh way of thinking about how to utilize this versatile and accessible tool.
Our vision is to become the best-known LEGO design company outside of the LEGO company itself. We have a great relationship with The LEGO Group and feel our services complement the values they hold. Our goal is that we will be known as the company to approach if TLG is unable to fulfill a special request.
Tell us about yourself?
Straight out of university, I began to follow wherever my wife’s career would follow. We felt it important that one of us would stay home with our children, and since her path was set, I stayed at home. I dabbled in many creative fields during that time. About seven or eight years ago, my interest in LEGO was rekindled, and I decided to start a LEGO club in my local area. This quickly grew into a very well-attended weekly program. That inspired me to challenge myself more and more with my own builds to inspire the children. This culminated in my first private LEGO commission in 2019. A year later, I incorporated my business as I had many personal clients wanting commission work. In that same year, I made the fantastic decision to bring other designers into the fold and started what would become a LEGO design agency. We were fortunate enough to gain Google as a client in 2021, and that set the wheels in motion for us to pivot into the corporate realm.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Focus! Like many small businesses, initially, I wanted to do it all! The idea was we would handle any commission project, large or small. It took me until earlier this year, after a serious bout of burnout around Christmas time, to understand that was unsustainable, and it would be far better to focus on one aspect of the business and be the absolute best at that.
What problem does your business solve?
A lot of businesses are looking for unique ways to share their brand identity, engage with their customers, and provide special gifts to their teams. LEGO is such a universal toy and has massive brand recognition on its own that it is a natural fit in that space. Add to that a custom LEGO design will set our client’s brand apart and literally put their brand into their audience’s hands, which is incredibly powerful messaging.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
Inspiration breeds inspiration. I began by wanting to inspire children to be more creative with LEGO. This, in turn, inspired me to be more creative, which led to my work inspiring a wider audience. Now, we are at the level where we use all that inspiration in a new way to help companies come up with inspiring products and gifts for their team members, employees, and customers.
The biggest issue we solve for our clients is brand engagement. There is no better way to increase brand engagement than by, quite literally, having their target audience build something related to their brand.
What is your magic sauce?
I would say we differ from our competition in several ways.
- Client communication – We also take a lot of time to listen to our client’s needs and make sure to craft the design we are creating to maximum effect. We constantly communicate with our clients throughout our process to make sure they are getting the very best result we can offer to them.
- Quality Assurance – We are incredibly thorough in our design and production process. We have a six-step Q & A process for each design and only work with very meticulous suppliers. When the inevitable small mistakes do happen, we take great pains to make sure they are fixed fast and well beyond our client’s expectations.
- Networking – We have a global team of 20 designers, as well we have many connections with other people in this field. We are able to draw on a lot of resources to make a project work.
- Challenge Hungry – We love a good challenge and are very willing to take on pretty much anything. We have pulled out some incredible projects in crazy timelines.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
This one is very hard for me to answer. If you had asked me this question when I started a few short years ago, my vision was much more humble than what we have achieved to date. My honest answer is to continue to challenge our team to be better than we were yesterday. I simply keep pushing and enjoy the ride. I couldn’t say where we will be in five years, and anything I would say would only put limits on what I think is achievable.
My ultimate vision is for us to be the go-to for corporate LEGO projects right after The LEGO Group itself. Will that take five years? 10 years? Who knows, but every day, that is the driver.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
Value and focus have been the two biggest issues. Of course, we have had the normal problems new small businesses face, logistics, supplies, establishing systems, and the like, but the biggest ones have been not understanding our value and not having a set focus.
In the beginning, like many creatives, I did not value the time we put into projects, and often, we were incredibly underpaid for the work we did. Over time, as we established ourselves and demonstrated the quality we bring to the table, we were able to correct that, and now I feel we are in a much better space for being compensated for our time.
Focus again was an issue. Trying to do it all led to far too much energy being diverted into dead ends, and time sinks. Now that we have a singular focus on corporate clients, it has certainly led to much better results.
How can people get involved?
Companies that are looking for innovative solutions to brand engagement, creative employee or customer gifts, or desire eye-catching display pieces can reach out to us on our website, www.playwell-bricks.com, contact us through LinkedIn, or reach me directly at 902-751-4471.