Space is my favorite word. As a kid, my favorite TV show was Space: 1999. It inspired me a lot; I built the Eagle spaceship out of LEGO elements, which later helped me land my very first job as a LEGO Space designer in Billund. For my application, I designed a spaceship that took many cues from the Eagle (my favorite spaceship of all time; watch out for the Eagle documentary). Later on, in the 90s, I taught concept development at the Space Invaders education program in Aarhus. I’m also a big fan of the Open Space process for group work. Oh, and my favorite movie is 2001 – A Space Odyssey.
The concept of space holds so many connotations and possibilities. Never forget that you have power over your personal space, both your physical and mental space. You can give others space but even more beautifully – you can hold space for another human being. And there is still plenty of space, virtually infinite amounts. Later, I will write about my favorite place, the Liminal Space. So all I can say is watch this space!
The LEGO Space set 1875 Meteor Monitor came out in 1990, in between original Blacktron and Blacktron II. It was part of a ‘Bonus Pack’ and I only have very faint memories of designing it. BUT since there has been quite a bit of speculation regarding the curious color scheme of this set, why not dive a bit into that..
The original Blacktron sets had done very well sales-wise, so there was to do a sequel of sorts. The consensus, however, was that Blacktron felt too aggressive, so the brief was to tone the darkness down while maintaining the cool factor. And I do recall spending some weeks (or was it months?) trying out different designs and color combinations. One of the better ones had little rainbows embedded in the models (five 1×2 plates stacked to form a tiny rainbow, probably inspired by my love for the ZX Spectrum home computer I use a lot in the early 80s). The boss of my boss said at the time that it was a clever way to tone down the agressiveness of Blacktron, but it didn’t make the cut. Rainbows did not have any particular symbolism in the early 90s by the way 🌈
Spectron, perhaps?
Another combo I tested was black and white elements + orange transparent (the orange trans was later used in the Ice Planet range). Having designed models for the Idea Book 260 may also have inspired as it also mixed and matched Futuron and Blacktron colors. And designing promotional sets was also a bit like having free playtime; the pressure was off, so to speak. And it was often an opportunity to be a bit more playful and casual regarding the design. And the brief to design the Meteor Monitor probably came by my desk in the same time period as the Blacktron color experiments. It is hard to recall the exact thinking behind the choice of colors, but having worked on the new color combos may very well have caused me to make it black and white as a kind of easter egg, signaling things to come. Blacktron 1.5 of sorts. Wish I could say it was 100% on purpose, not sure about that. But it’s a fun little set, bit of a hybrid/bastard colorwise but I like the shape of it. And several fans have fixed the color ‘error’, so there..
Models from Idea Book 260
Fun fact: I don’t own this set myself. Normally, the designer of a set was given one copy at launch, but more often than not, promotional sets slipped through the system. And it’s a bit expensive to buy it now.
For more 1875 fun, watch this video by R.R. Slugger:
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