LEGO Designers Q&A featuring Marcos Bessa and Jamie Berard [Feature]

On the 30th of April, LEGO hosted a live Instagram session where the LEGO community was able to interact and ask questions directly to two prominent LEGO Designers – Marcos Bessa, and Jamie Berard. With social distancing in place, this new feature is slated to be a weekly event and is a great way to learn more about LEGO and the insights into the mind of a designer. The session was insightful indeed, and we transcribed it here (as best we could) so that you can learn more interesting bits and facts about what LEGO designers do.

Marcos Bessa:
Hi everyone. My name is Marcos Bessa and welcome to this LEGO live show on Instagram. I will be here with you for a few minutes taking and answering some of your questions and engaging in a dialogue with you guys. I won’t be alone but at any moment I’ll be having Brickmaster Jamie joining in, so I’ll just wait for him to call into this live.

Meanwhile, I’ll give you a short introduction to who I am. So I’m Portuguese and I am a Design Manager at LEGO. I’ve been working for LEGO for the past 10 years, and I started as a designer and today I lead a team of designers that work in many different product lines, but I also get the chance to get my hands, directly creating products whenever I have the chance and that’s what I truly love. So I try to do that as much as I can. I have designed the products that I have behind me and many others, but we’ll talk more about that as soon as Jamie comes in.

I can see that I have some questions coming in, so please keep bringing in your questions. I’m trying to see if I can see Jamie’s request. This is my first live session, let’s see if it works. So we’re just waiting any moment now. There he is. Hello. Hey Jamie. How are you doing?

Jamie Berard: 
I’m doing well and you?

Marcos Bessa:
I’m good. I was really nervous. This is the first time I’m doing a live on Instagram.

Jamie Berard:
I almost wanted to just sit back and watch you go. I’m like, Oh, he’s good.

Marcos Bessa:
No, it’s really good to see you. And it’s been awhile because everything that’s going on, I haven’t seen you as often as I used to in the corridors of the office.

Jamie Berard:
I know – exciting times. We’re getting a lot of love. I love seeing those hearts going up. Yeah, please.

Marcos Bessa:
People keep bringing the love. We love to see it very colorful.

Jamie Berard:
So I can get my introduction then I guess. I am Jamie Berard, also known as Brick Master Jamie on LEGO masters, which is a recent thing, but Marcus just knows me as Jamie. I’m a lifelong LEGO fan that’s been in the LEGO company now for 14 and a half years. And I get to work on the LEGO exclusives, the Creator Expert, Architecture line. Marcus and I have gotten to work together on the Winter Village set with, Santa’s workshop. and then Marcus, of course, has done amazing things like Disney castle and every, everything that I buy. So we’re, we’re really, really happy to be here and we can’t wait to see some of your questions.

Marcos Bessa: 
Yes, definitely. I’ll start off with a question with from, almost the same name as myself, it’s [Markov]. What is the hardest part of designing a new set? Well, it’s, it’s a very broad question and it could have a different answer from each different designer that we have. But I think for me the hardest part is to, I think is to choose one of the ideas to get going with, because quite often we start with, with the brainstorming.

We have sessions with a lot of designers where we discuss ideas and things, think of anything we could create for a product. And that is narrowing that, narrowing down to that one that we kick off with. I think that’s, for me, maybe one of the hardest things.

Jamie Berard: 
Yeah and for me it’s stopping. It’s actually knowing when it’s done because I’m one of those people that I could just work on it and make it better and better and better each time. Well, what I think is better. So sometimes it’s forcing myself to say it’s good, it’s done, and then step away from it and hope that you guys love it.

Marcos Bessa:
Yeah, it’s definitely, I would say probably the second hardest part of it all. As you say, it’s just like having to let go. But quite often we work with, with timelines and deadlines to deliver things. So I guess in some way we have someone telling us like “Now you have to be done with it.” Yeah. It is hard to accept that quite often. Yes.

Jamie Berard:
That’s why we have marketing people (both laughs) I’m seeing that a [superlatchlan], Has a question and he’s saying, or she’s saying – when designing new sets, do you focus on structural integrity or appearance first? I would say for me it’s always visual first. Our very first models are terrible. You can’t lift them up, you can’t play with them, you can’t do anything with them. So we work really hard to make sure that we make something that looks like it should look. It looks exciting and fun and amazing for you guys. It’s after that that then we loop and we make it stronger and stronger and better. And Marcos gets to work with the kids’ products. So they actually have, maybe you could explain how you make it stronger?

Marcos Bessa: 
Yeah. So in a lot of our products we, that are skewing to a younger audience. So that they are from five to twelve-year-old kids. A lot of times where you do loops with not only with trying to stabilize the models with experts in the house that are literally just focused on making sure that we have models that are stable enough to play with the functions are all very sturdy. But we also do tests with kids in the house. We have kids coming into our building, on a regular basis and they come from all around the area and we ask them to test our prototypes to bring their prototypes to the floor and to different areas in the room and to play with them. And that’s how we validate the products – or part of what we do to validate them.

And I would like to add to the question on working with IPs, which I have been doing for the most of those 10 years here at LEGO and IPs – I mean, any project that is basically IP stands for intellectual propriety or property. And it’s basically anything that goes from Star Wars, from Super Heroes, Harry Potter, all of those projects that are associated to a movie or a franchise beyond LEGO. That’s what we call the IPs. And in those franchises, quite often the visuals are the starting point because we have that visual reference to work from and we try to capture the essence of what that is and then we kind of engineer it back to become a toy that is stable enough that is buildable by everybody around the world and so on.

Jamie Berard: 
Yeah. I guess there’s some great questions, but you guys really can ask anything. I mean, this is live. There’s no script. Believe me, and that’s actually at my house, Marcus, I don’t know if you are at some glamorous location, but I’m home, staying safe. So this is all real.

Marcos Bessa: 
Yes, I’m home as well. I tried to create a little cocoon here with some of my sets and actually, funnily enough, cause I don’t have a whole lot of Lego on exhibition at home. I don’t have a lot of boxes out of my storage, but I had to dig some of them for this and I found some boxes that I haven’t seen in years, like the Ewoks Village that I haven’t seen in many, many years. And the train, the Disney train, which is here with the station, which is my latest product, that is like one of the biggest products and my first D2C (Direct to Consumer) is here. That is like eight years old that I haven’t seen the box.

Jamie Berard: 
So, you know, I actually, I was going to grab it, but it doesn’t actually carry well, I have your Ewok Village just past my arm and I totally want to bring it here now, but it won’t fit.

Marcos Bessa: 
I can’t remember last time I built it, it was many, many years ago. This one is sealed. The box is sealed. I don’t know when I’m going to open it.

Jamie Berard:
But uh, [charlie_lightning_reed] is asking, what is your favourite set?

Marcos Bessa: 
What’s my favourite set? like of my life? I don’t know, for many years, it was the Green Grocer, grocery, is that how you call it? Green Grocery?

Jamie Berard: 
It’s whatever you’d like to call it. (Laughs)

Marcos Bessa: 
Well, the second modular that Jamie Berard designed for many years, it was my favourite one. And I think, over the time it’s just like, the newer modulars just kind of took over their place and I’ve always loved, and it’s not just because I’m talking to you, these kinds of sounds very awkward now that, you know, like praising your work and not about that at all. I came from the fan community as well, so I was an AFOL before becoming a LEGO designer and these models in particular offer you so much inspiration in building techniques, in new ways of using the bricks and to me that was like an eye-opening of what we could do with LEGO, especially when I first started building with LEGO as an adult. What about you?

Jamie Berard: 
Oh, I’m a big fan of Star Wars and Technic in general and I know it’s going to be super geeky and it shows some of my engineering side, but there’s an excavator that was done several years ago by Anders Gasendal and it has remote control functionality. It’s a digger that just, I was raving about it like a lunatic. I’m trying to tell everybody how much I loved it and I ended up buying two of them and now when people come over you can sit at the couch and you can both remote control and have a digging battle with each other but there’s something about it – I mean it fits – I’m trying to remember – it fits four motors inside a very small space. It totally controls everything. Love it. So I have to admit, I geek out with Technic

Marcos Bessa:
It’s a whole different dimension of LEGO really. Like we play with Technic a little bit here and there in our models, but when we pass by the Technic team and we see what they’re working on, it’s just a whole different reality of engineering. It’s mind-blowing.

Jamie Berard: 
I can see here that a lot of new people joining us. Just to remind them, I’m Brick Master Jamie.

Marcos Bessa:
and I’m a Design Manager, Marcos Bessa.

Jamie Berard: 
And we’re here to answer any questions you got.

Marcos Bessa: 
Yeah. So please keep shooting them and we’ll keep trying to go through as many questions as we can. I have a new one here by brickybricks82, love the name. You got a pretty good name.

Marcos Bessa: 
What was your first day in LEGO like? Well, that was already – mine 10 years ago. it was on October 4th, 2010 and I remember that on my first day, I was walking around the office, I was being shown around the office and I saw these, preliminary poster in a corner, in a print room that had a sketch of like a hand-drawn, Spiderman in a Minifigure forum – and back then we didn’t have LEGO Super Hero sets yet. So I was, I’m a huge fan of LEGO and Super Heros in general in comics. So seeing that and just the idea that we were potentially making something like that was already like – on top of the whole fact that I was inside the LEGO office was amazing. And the person there was showing me around very casually, ‘Yeah. We’re doing that. We’re making that” as if it was like the most natural thing to me. To me, it was like unbelievable and I think that’s one of the dearest memories I keep of that first day.

Jamie Berard: 
That’s nice. That’s a good first day.

Marcos Bessa: 
Yeah. It was amazing. Do you remember yours?

Jamie Berard: 
Yeah. I showed up to an empty town. I showed up January 2nd and there was nobody in town. Everybody was on vacation still. But then once I finally did come in, I was so nervous because I mean, my whole life I was just dreaming of LEGO and to actually be there and just walking around in the same place where all the sets that built my childhood were made.

I was really intimidated. I was a little bit afraid that I wasn’t going to be worthy of being there. I was really unsure of myself. So, it was so cool that when I finally, people did come back into the office, they were, they were like, “Oh my God, Jamie, you’re finally here”. And I’m like, “Oh, you know me?” And they’re like, “Yeah, you’re the one that they got from the LEGO FAN event. We’ve been dying for you to arrive.” “We were so excited to meet you – and did you really make that Ferris wheel? “And Oh, we saw this and they saw that.” And I thought it was really, really cool that, they were as excited to meet me as I was excited to meet them. And that’s where the balance comes in a lot of our teams that even though I didn’t have the designer background, it was really nice to know that I was bringing something new to the team that they were looking for. And then I get to meet these brilliant people that know colour theory and they know how to do the right composition and forms and they have a wonderful design process.

And now it’s only 14 and a half years later and we’re still doing that. We still make these teams very different people that balance each other so that way we can make awesome products. So I have to say first day, amazing to show up at a place that I love everything that happens there and then to feel so welcome. It was really great.

Marcos Bessa:
Yeah, you touched on a very good point. The fact that we have such a variety of people working together, it’s quite inspiring and I think it’s one of the greatest parts or the greatest aspects of our office. The fact that not only we have a huge variety of nationalities mixed up in the house. We also have a lot of different backgrounds, professional backgrounds. Like I came from an engineering background. I studied computer engineering. What did you study or what were you doing before?

Jamie Berard: 
Oh, I’m sorry. Did you, did you, did you type in that question? Did you ask a question? (laughs jokingly) [Ed: To give context, questions are supposed to be asked by viewers, not at each other]

Marcos Bessa: 
Sorry, I got too excited about the topic and just wanted to…,

Jamie Berard: 
I have an English degree strangely enough. And I studied civil engineering for two years.

Marcos Bessa:
It just shows that there’s so many people and there’s obviously a lot of others that as you mentioned that are formerly educated as designers and each of us brings a different perspective that just makes the team so much stronger, I believe. But now let’s go back into the actual typed questions. Exactly. I think you should go now.

Jamie Berard: 
Yeah. [reesepather] Is asking: Do you use CAD to design models or build it from scratch with bricks?

It actually varies depending on the designer, eventually, all models end up being in a CAD is computer-aided drawing or drafting and all of our models end up in a computer. But how you get there is very different from designer to designer. And I think that’s also what’s great about our design studio is that people can build whichever way suits them best. So I like the bricks – I geek out. I have even on my desk here in front of me, I got, you know, bricks and pieces and models everywhere and I just constantly playing with things. By the way, fun geometry that I’m playing with right now with frames. I’ve worked with the bricks.

Marcos Bessa: 
Wondering what you’re doing now? Like what you’re working on, what you’re cooking.

Jamie Berard: 
I know, yeah, I’m working on a BrickHeads and working on geometry letters, but, what happens is I just love playing with the bricks and so that’s how I start. But then eventually we do put it in the computer because that’s how everybody else, gets to understand what I’ve done and then they know how to produce it. They can manufacture it – we know all different kinds of things – if the pieces are available. And so it’s really useful to have it in the computer, but I start with the bricks. But, Marcos, you’re actually quite good with doing digital design and you’ve actually done some models almost fully in the computer. Is that right?

Marcos Bessa: 
Yeah, it’s true. I find it because quite often I’m working from a specific reference. As I mentioned with the IPs, I find it that it’s quite efficient to take that reference – that visual reference and then just iterate on the computer with colours and shapes and it’s much more efficient I think then going around collecting the bricks, but at one point or another I do go into the physical bricks and I do kind of validate everything and I have to have bricks on my table all the time as well. But I quite enjoy building digitally and especially now in the times that we are in where we are spending less time in the office, I do find myself building a lot on the computer actually.

Jamie Berard: 
Yeah, and actually you worked a lot on the LEGO movie too where you had to make a lot of models just digitally so that they could use it.

Marcos Bessa: 
Yeah, that was many years ago. I worked on the first LEGO movie and we did a lot of models that were primarily to be featured in the movie and then some of them were made into actual toys. But there was also a time where I was working on LEGO Simpsons products and we did a special episode with the Simpsons team where I created a lot of, um, a lot of buildings that are iconic buildings of the franchise for the episode that never became a product and that was all done digitally as well… but yeah, I think it’s fun.

Jamie Berard: 
Well, there’s nothing quite like having the physical models.

Marcos Bessa: 
Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s still the best experiences having the bricks in your hands, I think. Yeah. So [caring peachy123] Is asking.. I love the nicknames they are pretty cool.

Marcos Bessa: 
How do I get a job as a designer for LEGO sets?

Jamie Berard:
That’s actually a good question.

Marcos Bessa: 
Yeah, well, I have never been directly involved with hiring people. I’ve been just giving my opinions when seeing their portfolios. So I’ll let you answer this one Jamie because I know you have been more involved in that.

Jamie Berard: 
Yeah, I was actually…well this is a fun one. I was actually there for your very first audition when you were trying out to be a LEGO designer. So I’m very fortunate that I do get to be a part of the recruitment process where we bring people in and it’s really fun, but it’s also super competitive. I mean, usually, when we’re hiring we get a lot of people that are looking for it. So what we try to do is, first of all, we, we ask people to, look on jobs.lego.com and that’s where we post all of our jobs. And then once that pops up, then that magic moment happens, you have to be ready for it. And we always ask for what we call a “visual portfolio”. And a portfolio just means we need to see a visual meaning just with pictures…. what you can do and we want to see a nice mix. We want to usually see if you have any professional training, that you show that, that you say you went to design school or something and then show some of the projects you’ve worked on. But if you haven’t done that, you really need to make sure that you show a range of things that you can work on and the process that you used to do it. So try to show a lot of different models, but then also show maybe how you develop the models, how you improved on them, and talk through the steps of the process. Like, did you have somebody else ask you to build something and then you built it and then you tested it? Really trying to show the things that we would normally expect if you had training, to show that you can do it, but you also just have to dazzle us, like really show us fun, amazing stuff.

And then also have a bit of personality because I have to say everybody that that gets to the level that I get to see, they’re all amazing. And so what makes you stand out and what makes us want to work with you? I mean, I love working with Marcos. Hopefully, you enjoy working with me. We like being around people that we like being around and that are creative and inspiring. So really, you know, show up into your personality and be very open to trying things that you’re not used to doing. If you love building castles, try to build spaceships. Try to build something completely different than you do because that’s what we do all the time at work. As much as I love building modular buildings, sometimes I’ll have to build a ship or I’ll have to build a train or I’ll have to build a car and you really have to be flexible to be able to do those things so that way we know, no matter what we have that you can handle it.

Marcos Bessa: 
Yeah, totally. By the way, do you have…I’ll just jump in with one question I have, like after all these 14 years, do you have one product that you can say that it’s the one you are the most proud of over all this time that has remained the most favourite one?

Jamie Berard: 
I have to say I’m proud of a product that I can’t even take credit for – because the roller coaster that Robert did, I’m really proud of because of the team coming together to make that happen. It was super complicated to figure out and it took many years of conversation to just understand what we could bring to you guys. And that was a system that would be fun for kids to play with, but also good for adults – and it actually worked. I’m really proud of the amount of people that had to come together. It actually help that happen because I come in and I’m a crazy LEGO fan that loves amusement park rides. And day one, I’m like, “We gotta do a roller coaster!” And it only took 14 years because it’s really hard to figure out, but it just means that sometimes if you really believe in something, you can’t just tell people it should happen. You have to do things that help it happen. And I’m really proud of all of the work that everybody did to do that.

Of course by default, if it weren’t that – my own product I would say the Cafe Corner is, it is a big win for me. just because it showed how LEGO bricks could be put together in a way that was really playful and fun and okay for adults. I think that it was, it was nice to see… of course at that time there were things happening for Star Wars and whatnot, but to have just a normal building everyday life, available for kids, adults, everybody. I’m really happy that that started something that is still continuing today. And the fact that we have so many buildings just shows how creative we can be with ordinary normal things. Yeah. How about you?

Marcos Bessa: 
You know, I feel like every time someone asks me the question, it changes for either because I can’t remember the sets or because I’m feeling particularly passionate about this other one. But I feel like one of the highlights I’ve had so far in my career as a LEGO designer has been the Disney castle. I still hold it in that special place because it’s such an icon and it was such a fun challenge to go through designing it. And also there were so many moments of doubt – like, “Can I even do this? Can I do justice to this thing?” It’s such a responsibility and it has brought me so much joy seeing people building it and appreciating it that I feel like it’s still probably up there in the top of my choices.

Jamie Berard:
And, you know, that was one of the models that I really wanted to build. But if I didn’t get to build it, I was super happy that you were the one that got to do it cause they knew it was going to be amazing. So I also think that’s an amazing model.

Marcos Bessa: 
Thank you.

Jamie Berard: 
So I’ve got a final question here from [ivantan0609] – if you could introduce any new set regardless of licenses, what would it be? Marcos this is in your area because you do a lot of licensed products.

Marcos Bessa: 
Yeah, you know, well I already said that. I’m a huge comic book fan and I still have a lot of Super-Heroes that I would love to see coming into the mix that I haven’t seen yet. But fingers crossed they will come soon. But I love Pokemon and I’m playing Pokemon on my Nintendo switch right now. So I still dream of the day that I will have a whole Pokemon land around me built of LEGO and I think that would be awesome.

Jamie Berard:
Yeah, and I have a bit of a thing for Transformers. I have to say a guilty pleasure. I think it speaks to kind of the Technic side of me where I love things that can become something else or have movement or transformation.

Marcos Bessa: 
It’s quite a challenge.

Jamie Berard:
Yeah, and that one, I’ve seen some really cool stuff online, where people have tried to solve it with LEGO bricks and we actually had the designer of Transformers give an inspirational talk to us where he showed how he was able to use LEGO bricks to make some first versions of Transformers. So I found that super inspiring … someday …anything’s possible.

Marcos Bessa: 
There’s a lot of people actually. Quite interesting to see of whole different, fields and professions that actually use LEGO bricks in their work and it’s always quite inspiring to see how many other lives LEGO bricks can have beyond making toys. Well, unfortunately, it seems like time really flew by. It’s really nice. We should do this more often. I mean…

Jamie Berard:
I know, I know.

Marcos Bessa: 
It was really great to chat with you and to have you guys watching. So thank you so much for joining. Thank you for your questions. We’re sorry we couldn’t answer more, but keep sending them to the LEGO Instagram account. Maybe we get our hands into the account.

Jamie Berard: 
And you can get us to come back. And in the meantime, make sure to watch out for that hashtag. #Letsbuildtogether.

Marcos Bessa: 
Yes, and, basically this is a fairly new thing, but Lego is doing this more and more often. So stay tuned. We’ll have it’s, I think it’s a weekly thing. So we’ll probably have another live show on Instagram next week. So stay tuned. And until next time and tag, #letsbuildtogether. Hashtag alright, bye guys.


This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity. We likely got the names of the viewers that asked the questions incorrect in [brackets]. Apologies in advance as it was from an audio transcribe. 

2 comments on “LEGO Designers Q&A featuring Marcos Bessa and Jamie Berard [Feature]

  1. Shazam

    Jamie, when will you design another modular?? Please come back to the modular line!

  2. Bill McQuown

    I’m really pleased to learn that Jamie likes Transformers. That would be a fantastic IP if Hasbro allowed LEGO to make them actually transform, but that seems to be the caveat to all licensees- no transformation, which would make them as pointless as the Kreo sets were.
    I never understood why LEGO didn’t just do their own transforming models; they’ve certainly got the talent pool to figure it out, and IMHO, you can never have too many transforming robots.

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