characters from superheroes

The tieup's and craze:

That "Galidor" series he mentions with such disdain was based off a kid's show of the same name. It involved so many new parts exclusive to each individual set that it resulted in awkward kits that did not comfortably fit into the Lego brand. Here's one being sold on eBay:

Screenshot, eBay

Stafford considers the Galidor series to be Lego's biggest failure.

The only reason Lego survived during this difficult time was due to the success of the Bionicle and "Star Wars" series. The first "Star Wars" Lego kits launched in 1999 and represented the company's first foray into licensed series, many of which became integral to the company, as this infographic from Wired illustrates. But Lego could not survive on several big sellers alone.

Knudstorp, a former McKinsey consultant, took charge of the foundering company in 2004 and immediately got to work. Stafford explains:

Jorgen Vig was put in charge, he made the hard call and made redundancies, they slashed the number of parts down to 6000 (a figure that has grown, but we're still below well below the 2003 total) - the company reorganized and analyzed all costs, design was finally linked to manufacturing cost and re-focused on the core business of making construction sets. The unprofitable LEGO Computer games business was shut down. (Some of these guys returned to the UK and started their own company called Travellers Tales, they then licensed the LEGO computer game business and freed from LEGO management (who know nothing about computer games) they still make the LEGO computer games today - making good money for all involved - including LEGO.)

After consolidation and streamlining, Knudstorp led a charge to put creative control into the hands of hardcore fans of the brand rather than in those of top designers who had skills but lacked a real understanding of Lego's history. The company held its first designer recruitment workshop in Sept. 2006. Writes Stafford:

I was one of the 11 designers hired at that time, new managers were in place in the Design building, all developed inside the company, these guys loved the product, they knew the customers as they had grown up playing with LEGO and they had ideas that had been restrained for years. They hired several kid focused design graduates and a few AFOLs (adult fans of LEGO), of which I was one.

Stafford is one of the designers of the "Legends of Chima" series, which has an accompanying animated television show. The kits feature plenty of new parts and characters, but never venture beyond the classic Lego "feel" that designers like Stafford helped bring back to the brand. Here's an example, from Lego's website:

Lego.com

One of Stafford's creations.

For Stafford, the best proof of Lego's turnaround is captured by the new movie:

For me it's been an absolutely fantastic seven years so far and I see all of the work and principles these guys have created as the message of The LEGO Movie, it's not just a toy, it's a tool for creation and imagination and getting LEGO bricks into the hands of kids is the only aim of everything we do. I'm so proud of being even a tiny bit involved in it!