Since modern Lego bricks debuted in 1958, their color scheme has undergone a transformation from a handful to more than 110 at their peak in 2004. The palette has evolved, grown and shrunk over the decades.
When Lego started making bricks, they were small, colored bricks. "These were very basic colors," said Signe Weise, a corporate historian at Lego. The original colors on the bricks, according to Weise, were red, yellow, blue, white and clear.
Lego brick colors in 1958
If you counted every brick produced since 1958, most would be black, gray or white, but such an inventory hides the palette's colorful history. Using data from the Rebrickable, a site that aggregates information about Lego sets, the Washington Post analyzed the palette to explore what the color scheme says about the company's evolution.
Jared Hinton, a site manager for Los Angeles-based Rebrickable, has worked for more than five years helping to carefully record and maintain the data.
"As the Internet and interest in Lego colors has grown, so has our ability to preserve that information and create more accurate inventories," Hinton said.
All brick colors used by Lego since 1958
Original colors on Lego bricks
New colors on bricks introduced between 1978 and 1989
New colors on bricks introduced between 1990 and 1999
New brick colors used in 2004
New brick colors used in 2007
New colors on bricks used in 2022
A more controlled color palette means designers have to work creatively within Lego's color system, Weise said. One way designers do this is to reimagine pieces with new colors. For example, a piece of frog appears in a set of bonsai trees — but pink. The set contains many pink frogs, sitting on the branches of the blooming tree, giving the appearance of flowers.
Likewise, an Avatar set includes turquoise bananas and purple carrots to create plant life. "You have to find new ways to use old things," Weise said. "We're making sure [the bricks] are in the system and that they match everything we've done."
Themes expand the palette
Beginning in the 1960s, Lego grouped its products into a few categories, but it wasn't until 1978 that Lego debuted in important issues first – Castle, City and Space. These theme sets make up what is known to fans as the "classic three," according to Hinton.
These themes each had a palette based on the colors of the time — the early Castle sets featured mostly yellow bricks, while the Town featured a lot more white and red.
The three most commonly used colors in Castle, Town and Space themes
As Lego's color system evolved and grew, so did the potential for distinctive palettes. Among the themes Lego launched in the 1990s were Star Wars and Belville, a category with elements including playgrounds, horses, castles and princesses. Both needed very different color profiles.
The most common colors in Star Wars and Belville themes
"There was this trend of pink toys [in the 1990s]," said Erica Weisgram, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point who researches gender development in children. "Pink should be the epitome of femininity."
After the introduction of pinks and pastels in the 1990s, the darker colors and primary colors in Lego's palette seemed much more masculine in comparison, according to Weisgram.
Lego sets are still seen as gendered among parents. In one study commissioned by Lego and conducted by the Geena Davis Institute, researchers found that in an implicit bias assessment, 76 percent of parents said they would recommend Lego for their sons compared to 24 percent who said the same for daughters.
In the same study, researchers shared recommendations – including color – to help make Lego products more gender neutral.
"The palette is a really important way of communicating who a toy is for," said Lisa Dinella, a professor at Monmouth University who studies children's play along with gendered experiences. "Our science is really clear that children and consumers notice color palettes and that they know that those color palettes are associated with certain genders."
In 2021, Lego pledged to make its games more gender-neutral.
Lego minifigures and representation
The introduction of the themes also marked the first time a Lego set included the yellow minifigure. The yellow minifigure introduced in 1978 was intended to be "ethnically neutral," according to a Lego's telling of the minifigure story, and for decades almost all of them were yellow.
That changed in 2003 when Lego released a minifigure for Lando Calrissian, a Black Star Wars character. In the same account, the authors write that it was the first minifigure in the Star Wars theme and among the first of all minifigures with natural skin tones.
Star Wars minifigures for human characters – like Luke Skywalker, for example – were yellow up until that point. The decision to make Lando Calrissian's skin brown was controversial among fans, according to Hinton, because introducing a black minifigure into a world of yellow minifigures suggested that all the yellow minifigures actually represented white skin tones.
Lando Calrissian wasn't the only minifigure released in 2003 with natural skin tones. That same year, Lego also released minifigures for many real-life people, including NBA stars Kobe Bryant, Chris Webber and Steve Nash. In 2004, Lego released a new color for fair skin and updated minifigures in various franchises with natural skin tones.
"It's important to us because using different colors, especially when we're talking about skin tones, is what allows us to represent more people," Weise said. "More people, more kids and more adults feel represented on our sets."
Colors used for skin tones in the new
Lego Friends universe
Lego reported recently children's desire to see themselves better represented in their toys, which inspired the release of a new set of Lego's Friends themed characters.
“Representation is always a very good thing for children to see. They want to see themselves in the commercial. They want to see themselves in this game,” Weisgram said.
"Although we've grown and the color palette has grown with us, we still know where we're coming from and what we're going to stick with to continue the success as well," said Weise.
About this story
All data used for this story comes from Rebrickable. Unit colors are not included in the analysis. To calculate the median number of colors used in a given time frame, all Lego pieces were included. Data was pulled on September 13th.
Rebrickable provides data on Lego sets, components, themes and colors to help users create new designs with Lego bricks they already have at home. A admin group works to ensure data is as reliable and accurate as possible for its more than 850,000 users. Because the data is crowdsourced, however, it doesn't perfectly reflect the company's many products over the years.
Kati Perry's favorite toys growing up were Lego bricks. She particularly liked the Harry Potter theme and now has several sets in her home, including two from the Botanical Collection.
Chiqui Esteban edited this story. He grew up with a wooden box filled with loose Legos and Tente (a Spanish construction toy similar to Lego). Bricks from the two brands could not be connected together, so the last piece needed to finish a ship or car he was building was usually of the wrong system and didn't work.
Anne Kenderdine edited this story. She attended the early days of BrickFest, but once failed a quiz given by her daughter about identifying Lego Friends characters.
Her Katy Perry
Source: washingtonpost