Posted By Adam White on Sep 12, 2018 | 2 comments

Last week Bricklink began to tease an official link up with the LEGO Group, for something called the AFOL Design Program. The joint venture has been created to celebration the 60th anniversary of the LEGO® brick. Fan builders are urged to ‘build’ and submit their creations using Bricklink’s Studio 2.0 digital design program. These will then be reviewed by the LEGO Design Team, who will select 20 designs. These designs will then be made available for crowdfunding, designs which successfully reach their funding goal, will become a limited edition 60 Years Anniversary set exclusively available on BrickLink. Although the LEGO Design Team will be involved in the selection process, the sets will be produced and sold by Bricklink using new elements sourced directly from LEGO. You’ll be able to pre-order sets, which will give you the premium version of that particular set, or simply buy them when they become available in Spring 2019. This appears to be a limited event, created solely to celebrate 60 years of the brick. In all honesty, it sounds like a fun idea but it also seems a little confusing. It’s partly like LEGO Ideas, but designs must be funded via crowdfunding and won’t be considered official LEGO products, however it could be a unique way to get your design turned into a set, which may struggle on Ideas. To learn more about the Bricklink AFOL Design Program head over to Bricklink.

Your design can become a limited edition 60 Years Anniversary set!

We begin accepting entries on September 18th

After we posted a teaser about the AFOL Designer Program, we closely monitored the conversation surrounding it. It was fun to read what you all thought this program would be. So what is it exactly? In case you missed it, BrickLink and the LEGO Group are celebrating 60 years of the LEGO® brick with the AFOL community by realizing unique designs with truly original themes. Through this program, your design can become a limited edition 60 Years Anniversary set!

The program will have three main phases:

1. Accepting entries – To give you some time to think about what you’d like to design, we will begin accepting entries on September 18th until November 18th. Your designs will not be displayed publicly during this time. The LEGO design team will review your submissions made with Studio 2.0, and up to 20 finalists will be selected.
2. Crowdfunding – Selected designs will be announced and displayed for crowdfunding beginning February 2019. You will be able to pre-order designs at this time.
3. Release – Successfully crowdfunded designs will become a limited edition 60 Years Anniversary set exclusively available on BrickLink. We will begin shipping orders April 2019.

Why should I submit my designs?

Besides being able to share your designs with the AFOL community, designs that are selected for realization will also be reviewed and produced as limited edition box sets. On top of that, BrickLink will pay 10% of total sales revenue to designers for all successfully crowdfunded AFOL designs including pre-order. You will retain full IP rights for non-selected designs, meaning you can freely use your original designs for any other purpose after the event.

Even if you aren’t a designer, we’d still love everyone to get involved! You can share your ideas with the AFOL community in the Studio 2.0 forum.

Ready to get started?

The AFOL Designer Program requires that your designs are submitted with Studio 2.0, which has improved functionality and new features for this program (new features will be available Sep 18th). A building palette made specifically for the AFOL Designer Program will be included so that you are able to focus more on the design itself. Next, check if your design is stable with the all-new stability check because we want to fall for designs, not have them fall apart. Then you can export breathtaking images and even create building instructions for your designs!