Building a Life out of LEGO Bricks

LEGO sets are a staple in playrooms worldwide. While kids often outgrow their favorite toys, playtime never ends for the young at heart.

Sometimes, LEGO bricks can snap together to build something bigger than towers or starships. Some passionate fans have used the iconic bricks to construct entire careers and transform their lives.

Whether it’s sharing their passion for The LEGO Group with millions online, opening a LEGO-focused event space, or turning LEGO bricks into world-class art installations, these creators have turned playtime into a professional calling.

“The most joyful thing about LEGO bricks is that they can be anything,” says Toronto-based Master Model Builder and LEGO Certified Professional Graeme Dymond.“You can really build anything out of LEGO bricks, and for so many people who grew up playing with LEGO bricks and having this experience of building … there really isn’t a limit to what you can do with it.”

Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOLs) is a community of people who have a serious love for LEGO creations. These lifelong fans have amassed huge LEGO collections, founded communities of other enthusiasts, and even launched businesses around the building sets. 

Robin Sather, Canada’s first LEGO Certified Professional, is one of many AFOLs whose lives have changed drastically because of their passion for The LEGO Group. Sather has loved building with LEGO bricks since he was 4 years old and has carried his fondness for creating into his adult years. While working as an independent database consultant, Sather was ready for a change — or, at the very least, a side hustle.  

“My first career was in IT, but after about 15 years of that, I realized that life goes by quickly, and I wanted to work at something I loved. For me, that was building and playing with LEGO bricks,” Sather says. “So, I started to create professional quality LEGO-based events and custom builds, as a sideline to my IT business.”

And people loved it. Sather’s side business evolved into Brickville DesignWorks, which uses LEGO bricks to make extraordinary creations for public events, exhibits, and private clients. Inspired by his initial success, Sather proposed partnerships to The LEGO Group, hoping to enhance and enable these experiences for the company, the public, his business, and the growing LEGO fan community. 

“I wrote up a proposal that would enable talented entrepreneur LEGO builders to create LEGO-based businesses and partner up with The LEGO Group to do things and go places where LEGO typically did not go. I also suggested a format for how select die-hard fans could connect and communicate with the company to build up the fan community,” Sather says. “I presented all of this to The LEGO Group, and they loved it! These programs became the LEGO Certified Professional Program and the LEGO Ambassador Network, respectively. That was 20 years ago, and both programs are still going strong.”

Through programs like these, AFOLs like Sather can find people who share their love of LEGO bricks, sets, and more. And with today’s technological advances, builders can share their passions and creations with online communities and people worldwide.  

Many LEGO builders spread the brand’s popularity by sharing their creations via building competitions, conventions, and social media. Jordan Forsythe, better known by his online moniker Bricksie, shares his builds with the world via social platforms like YouTube, on which his channel has more than 450,000 subscribers. Bricksie also has 1.5 million TikTok followers with 24 million likes and more than 581,000 Instagram followers at the time of publication. 

In 2015, Forsythe and his wife bought their first LEGO set at Toys “R” Us. While it started as an after-work hobby, the two quickly amassed a variety of different LEGO buildings, attractions, vehicles, and minifigures. Forsythe’s collection currently consists of approximately 2,000 LEGO sets. 

“When I first got into collecting LEGO, I bought the [LEGO: Creator Expert] Detective’s Office, and then as soon as I bought that one, I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to start building a LEGO City,’” Forsythe explains. “I had one modular building, then I had two, then I had three, then I had four. And then I was like, ‘Oh yeah, we got to get some tables.’ So, I got a table, and I put it on a table, and I put roads in front of it and started developing it that way … and then all of a sudden, it was my entire basement.”

Forsythe is best known for his expansive LEGO City, consisting of LEGO building sets and his own original creations. The city features approximately 1,040 base plates, which comprise 720 square feet of his studio space. The massive LEGO build includes various districts, like a beach scene, a zoo, an amusement park, a train yard, a downtown area, and more. 

“As soon as you go the LEGO City route, you sort of start building custom stuff because they’re not going to provide you kits that are going to show you how to build a road or a park or a fountain in the park or a mountain or how to build elevation within your city. They’re not going to provide you with guidelines on how to do that through their instructions,” Forsythe explains. “I think you still need to build custom around that just to better landscape your city and make it look natural.”

Believe it or not, Forsythe’s current LEGO City is only 25% developed. The LEGO enthusiast is still working on the layout and will continue doing what makes him — and, of course, his loyal followers — very happy.

“I need to develop my city with the vision that I have laid out, and I’m going to continue doing that on YouTube and continue to have fun with it. I think that’s the most important thing,” Forsythe says.

Forsythe’s collection and building prowess aren’t just cool, they are also how he makes a living — and he’s not the only one. 

Nathan Sawaya is an artist and the founder of Art of the Brick, an international touring exhibition featuring more than 34 standard LEGO brick colors. The artist quit his profession as an attorney in Manhattan to pursue his love of art, and unlike traditional artistic mediums, he expresses himself solely through LEGO bricks.

“I think one of the cool things about my career is that I never knew it would take me to so many places,” Sawaya says. “My exhibition, Art of the Brick, has traveled to more than 25 different countries and more than 100 different cities. It has been so life-changing to meet so many different people and experience so many different cultures, and everyone still loves art made out of LEGO bricks.” 

While some turn LEGO bricks into art, others turn them into opportunities. Dymond created his company, Dymond Bricks, to share LEGO bricks’ endless possibilities with others. Whether it’s building a commission for Amazon’s Canadian Headquarters or facilitating a building session for Défi Canderel’s cancer fundraiser, Dymond Bricks helps people and companies achieve their goals through the power of building. 

“Ultimately, I’m building models and selling them to clients, but it never feels like sales to me because I just really believe in what I’m building and the fun and the joy that it can bring,” Dymond says. “I get to be slotted in to make sure that these companies get to do fun and amazing things with LEGO [bricks] that are still on-brand and still align with LEGO’s core values and just have a good time bringing the joy of LEGO to people all around the world.”

While not every LEGO enthusiast will make a career or an entire city out of LEGO bricks, there’s no way of knowing where you’ll go once you start building.