The LEGO Group made quite a splash at San Diego Comic-Con 2024. Bringing to life an entire space station at their booth, the toymaker introduced a spirit of discovery and creation to the convention. But, of course, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy experiencing new worlds and going on incredible adventures with The LEGO group if it weren’t for the people behind the bricks. At SDCC, we were excited to catch up with Jamie Berard, a Senior Design Manager and Creative Lead at the LEGO Group, who is also a judge on the hit series LEGO Masters. Berard shared some of his favorite aspects of being a judge on LEGO Masters and also took us deep into the heart of what it means to be a LEGO designer. From his favorite challenges to the sets he’s most proud of to why everyone why everyone should give building with LEGO® bricks a shot—check out our full interview below.
Nerdist: We love LEGO Masters and your participation in it. Can you talk a little bit about what you felt the most exciting part of it has been for you?
Jamie Berard: For me, it is such a treat to be able to leave Denmark, which is a lovely place, leave my day job, and then get to hang out with these amazingly creative people who are willing to take a chance and go on national television and take that risk to be able to show their creativity and love of LEGO building. And so just to be surrounded by those people is inspiring, and then to be able to work with them and actually give guidance and pointers—and then for them to feed off of other people in the room; it’s just really special. And I think to be able to be a part of that is really the answer your question.
I actually recently built my first LEGO set about a year ago, and I really found it to be a beautiful experience. I felt like it was a wonderful act of creation, and it was just a very calming, chill experience. Do you think people see that show as Bake Off kind of experience where they can just watch people create and zen out?
Berard: Exactly. I think it’s just so aspirational to see that with such a small amount of time, without knowing at all what’s going to happen and without any planning, what people can come up with. I think it’s almost magical. But I think it also gives you hope that at home, if you want to try some of these things, sometimes it doesn’t have to be the biggest, most impressive, beautiful sculpture. It can be something as silly as making something that’s really tall or something that you can shape and not have it fall apart. We actually see a lot of families that are trying some of these challenges as well and kind of making them their own. So I think it’s the level of different things that you get to see that hopefully you find something where you’re like, oh, I never thought of that. Maybe I could try that.
So, what is the most exciting LEGO Masters challenge, in your opinion, or your favorite?
Berard: There have been some that I’ve been completely blown away by. So I would say something like any of the fashion challenges—wearing anything made out of paper bricks is extremely difficult. So that that’s incredible. That’s from a few seasons back. It was just a gorgeous challenge. And it wasn’t just nicely built LEGO models. They were actually very stylish, very artistic. I mean, the handbags from the last season, also. You’re like, these are genuinely runway-worthy handbags. So, I think those have been nice to see. And it’s nice to see how people can actually have an artistic side that has that design style. But I also love things like the rollercoaster challenge. We had Brent here (Brent Benedetti), who was our challenge coordinator and challenge producer. He would tell you that I was trying to talk about it because I’m like, this is one you could end up with a lot of people pulling their hair out if they are too ambitious and they run out of time.
But you get to see like, Christopher and Robert come up with something that I was like, I’m not sure you’re going to be able to finish this. That lift elevator, that kind of spirals around, for example. It was just so fun to see the imagination and just the audacity to be brave and go all in. And then, in the end, to see it all work out and see everybody celebrate their engineering side and their creative side, for me, that is just like high fives awesome. And I’ve learned to be a little more optimistic and not so unsure of what people are capable of. Sometimes, they just need that little bit of motivation.
I feel that really comes into LEGO Group’s San Diego Comic-Con theme of exploration and discovery. When you’re given the opportunity to take a step beyond, then you rise to meet it.
Berard: Exactly. When else would you have a chance to do what they’re doing on LEGO Masters? They get 10 million LEGO bricks, they get all of these creative people around them, and then they get eight hours, 10 hours, 12 hours to just do something awesome. And it’s like one take. They don’t get to do a practice run and try again. They’re so present. I think if you ever want to feel like you’re alive, you feel these people all in the room have lived 10 lives at that moment because it’s just so much adrenaline.
I can’t imagine. I love a creative challenge. Listening to you, I really think you all need to collaborate with Project Runway and have a crossover LEGO Fashion Challenge.
Project Runway, get our number!
Is there any LEGO Masters challenge that you wish you could have participated in?
Berard: Amy (Corbett) and I were talking about that. Of course, I love the rollercoaster challenges because I’m a big theme parks fan. That’s what got me into the LEGO Group. I got hired because I make amusement park rides, so that’s kind of an easy one. But then, for me, it would feel a little bit too fun. I might enjoy a little too much. But I love the crazy one where the kids came in a few seasons back, the Taker-Waker with the Book Chicken, when it’s just making up ridiculous things that no one’s ever seen. I love that because it’s not like an expectation or a script; it’s your chance to really do something fun, silly, and imaginative. And how can you go wrong with that?
You’ve had four amazing seasons of LEGO Masters, and season five is happening. Is there anything you can tease about the upcoming advent of season five?
Berard: Good question. I don’t know how much we can tease because we have the Lego Masters: Celebrity Holiday Bricktacular coming up, and it’s just one of my favorite times of year. It’s the gift that keeps on giving as a show. We have four more wonderful celebrities coming on.
And what I like about it is just how you get to see a whole different side of the builders you already know and love, but then you get to see Will (Arnett) with his best friends just having a blast. It’s pure holiday games.
So now, let’s get more into you and your LEGO journey. Do you have a favorite LEGO set that you’ve designed that fans could look out for?
Berard: That’s a tough one, but I think the rollercoaster, obviously. I keep going back to it. But the rollercoaster LEGO set is one that I’m so thrilled about because it brought together the whole team. And that’s why I was nervous about the LEGO Masters version of the challenge. It took my aerospace engineer, and my architect, and brilliant people all coming together to bring it to life. And then I also got to actually physically build on that. So that’s one that I’m really proud of.
Is there a LEGO set that you wish you could have helped create?
Berard: Yes, very specifically, the Disney Castle. I started it, the project started in my area, and then over time, it evolved in conversations, and they ended up moving into the Disney team. So I have a first sketch of that. I was so jealous of Marcos (Bessa) but so happy with the way it turned out. Of course, he did an amazing job. But it’s just one of those sets that was just out of reach. So I am actually considering finishing my version, just to see how it would’ve turned out; not to take anything away the final one, but it’s such an icon that I was just so excited to work on it.
There can never be enough amazing LEGO sets out there for us to enjoy! Do you have a dream LEGO set that you’d like to create?
Berard: I actually stopped answering that question a long time ago because when we dream stuff that we think we can’t do, sometimes things change, and we can do it. So I would say crazy things like a Titanic, like four-and-a-half-foot-tall Eiffel Tower. I used to talk about ridiculously large, complex sets like roller coasters. I said rollercoasters from day one. We didn’t have the tracks, we didn’t have anything, and then we made rollercoasters. So I’m an optimist, and I would just say if you can dream it, tell us because we can probably make it.
Exactly, that’s exactly what I mean. Not a set you think you can’t do, but one you dream of getting to do!
Berard: Yes, I do have some. But I’m going to save them because I’m actually planting seeds on some of our models. They can actually take two or three years of prepping and planning. For example, the rollercoaster track, for which we had to build a whole new system and get everybody on board. So, I do have some great ideas. But I think you’ve already heard some of my areas of interest…
What do you think is one thing fans might not realize about what goes into the creation of a LEGO set?
Berard: I think fans might not see the team effort. More often than not, I’m very privileged to get to represent the company. They see me, and they think, oh, Jamie did everything. Or they’ll see some of the designers in videos or photos. But it really is incredible. We have so many talented people with such diverse skill sets. We have some people that just know four-year-olds perfectly or five-year-olds and six-year-olds. And they become masters of them. So that way, when we make a model, they can actually talk with the designer to make sure it will work. They say, oh, actually, that’s going to be hard for a child to put together or even just take apart or to play with. And these people think about it from the perspective of these children.
We also have people that intentionally build very badly because they want to try to figure out, for instance, if somebody’s at home in poor lighting or they have that arthritis in their hand or something, what will happen? They will intentionally build like a kid or build like somebody that’s distracted. And then we can say, oh, oops, I made a mistake, maybe we could actually change this and make it better. That way, we don’t have those pauses or those moments when people feel self-conscious, like, oh no, I did something wrong. We really try to think ahead of that, and when we do it well, we get ahead of that, and hopefully, everybody just gets to the end and whatever model it is, at their level, they love it.
Do you have a LEGO fun fact that you love?
Berard: A little fun fact that people might not realize is we have this robotics set called LEGO Mindstorms, and just on a whim, before LEGO Masters and everything, they just asked me, because I did YouTube videos, “Would you mind being the voice of the LEGO Mindstorms robot?” And then I came in to record it, and then they recorded, and they said, oh, actually, that works pretty well. Let’s do it one more time. And then I had to cancel the next two times because I had a cold, and they said, well, we don’t have any more time, just come in. I recorded it with a cold, and they said that was the voice they wanted. And then that became the voice of Mindstorms robot.
What would be one thing you’d say to somebody who’s never built a LEGO set to encourage them to join the LEGO world?
Berard: I think we have enough things that people should be able to find something interesting, even if it’s just a little Minifigure. There’s something very satisfying about just putting some legs together with the torso and a hat, and then that character is somebody they care about. It might inspire an accessory. They can build a little car; they can make a little scene for it. And I think that’s something that’s so simple, there’s no expectation of that. I think if you just start small, then you might be surprised that, oh, actually, I have a little bit of confidence that this isn’t so scary. And then you can find another set that maybe you build off of.
Just to finish off, how do you feel the LEGO brand has evolved since you started working with it, and what do you think is next on the horizon?
Berard: I am just so impressed that things that we never thought possible 18 years ago have slowly become the norm. That’s where I was genuinely saying that I am such an optimist right now. I’m just like, we are literally talking about the human constraints of “can they carry it out?” or we can actually dream of crazy, wonderful stuff. And we keep seeing things we never imagined would sell, they just go crazy. So we have such a broader base of fans or people that are interested in the zen moment, and disconnecting, and having that “everything works in the world” moment, it’s a nice little escape. And I think there are just so many things that I’m just inspired, that it’s like I said, anything’s possible, and that just makes me get excited every day to go into work.