Designer of Lego minifigure, train sets
Their numbers have reached 7.8 billion if not more, roughly the population of Earth. Their ranks include police officers, firefighters, pirates, knights, astronauts and elephant keepers.
Their physical dexterity is limited, their facial features plain. But for more than 40 years, they have been the object of untold hours of enjoyment for generations of children and collectors.
They are Lego minifigures, and their creator, the Danish Lego designer Jens Nygaard Knudsen, has died at 78.
Over the decades, Lego honed modern techniques of manufacturing plastic toys, patenting its signature stud-and-tube locking system for its toy building bricks in 1958. But until Knudsen’s innovations in the 1970s, Lego lacked a human or even humanoid element to enliven its playscapes.
“There was something missing from the houses, cars, planes and fantasy world these children spent hours playing with,” Sarah Herman wrote in her book A Million Little Bricks: The Unofficial Illustrated History of the LEGO Phenomenon.
In 1974, the company introduced human figures best remembered for their appearance in the popular Family set, which included a mother and a father, a grandmother and two children, all with round yellow heads. The characters proved popular with young fans but were too large to be comfortably employed in the small-scale Lego world.
Knudsen joined Lego in 1968 and ultimately became the company’s chief designer. He was tasked with overseeing the development of a new line of miniature figures.
Four years later, he introduced the blocky minifigure with movable arms and legs, C-shaped hands to grip other Lego elements, and basic if sometimes inscrutable facial features.
Minifigures were people in the most rudimentary form, allowing seemingly infinite possibilities for children to imagine the lives behind them.
The line grew over the years to include 8,000 characters, among them figures from the Star Wars and Harry Potter franchises.
Knudsen also was credited with designing Lego sets including the castle, space and pirate themes.
Knudsen was born Jan. 25, 1942. He retired in 2000.
A colleague said Knudsen suffered from ALS and that he died on Feb. 19 at a Denmark hospice.
Survivors include his wife, Marianne Nygaard Knudsen.