The day you've been waiting for.

This is it, folks.

No, this is more than it. This is IT. This is the official declaration: Brickspace is ONE YEAR OLD. We've made it. We're through. So, without further ado, here's a couple of announcements to make our big day even bigger. Massive, even.

Brickspace Opinions

Something that we've been working on for a while now is finally finished. We'd like to introduce you all to Brickspace Opinions, a new sub-blog. From the official press release:

Brickspace Opinions is the blogging revolution from Brickspace.org. Have your say by blogging mini-articles about whatever Lego-related topic you choose, and reply to others' articles with your own. If an article is a little too long for your reply, then just write your opinion as a comment. Brickspace Opinions has a comments system powered by DISQUS, which means you can reply to other comments and customize your profile picture quickly and easily.

Brickspace Opinions is advertising for people to help write for it, so please, if you interested, contact me at john@brickspace.org.

The second year of Brickspace
There's a lot of things I would like to say here, a lot of information about what I'd like to do with Brickspace in the coming year. Of course, I won't tell you all of that now, but if you really want to know, check back on some of the celebration posts - they reveal a lot of my plans for Brickspace.
My main aim is to make Brickspace a completely unique blog, being more like Brickspace Opinions, only with creations and videos and all the usual stuff. I want to aim more to opinionated content, stuff more to make you think rather than plain ol' "this is a creation it is good" stuff. Sure, that's good for you readers to get a quick idea of the MOC, but judging on the success of blogs like Brick Flotilla, so-called 'rant blogs' are becoming increasingly popular. Opinions is Brickspace's first step to becoming what I want it to evolve into by next year.

As for other features, you'll just have to wait. Anyway, enough disappointment - let's not spoil Brickspace's big day!

Thank you all, staff and readers, for keeping Brickspace going for one whole year. Without you, I wouldn't be here saying thanks to you today. Please, carry on reading Brickspace, and have another fantastic year!

Farvel, og tusind tak,
~John

Not your average blog.

Welcome to the fourth, and penultimate celebration post about the history of Brickspace.

Brickspace has always been on the frontier of unique Lego blogs. It's one of the very few Lego fan blogs that combines both creations and Brickfilms, and unites them under one virtual roof. It's this diversity in the content of Brickspace that has attracted more and more viewers to its pages each week.

Brickspace was originally a Lego-only blog, but along with its new name (when it changed into what we know today from Best of Brickshelf), it started to showcase a lot more than creations. The first ever video post was of the film 'The Day Brickfilms.com Crashed', and was blogged by Luke, one of the new members of Brickspace and the driving force behind the redesign.

Brickspace then started to class its posts by using small banners at the top of each post. The first few were Creation, Video, News and Site News, but here's a couple of others that you don't see so often, and some that never made it...

Back to the Future was a short-lived blog post series, which sadly had only one 'episode'. The idea was to revisit old Lego series and talk about how they were so popular, mainly the series which were being rereleased. I, as John, admin of Brickspace, give you my promise that Back to the Future will be back, someday. I'll never go off the idea.

'Bio' never happened, either. The idea here was to write a short biography of a builder (or Brickfilmer), and to eventually compile all these builder profiles into a special site or book or something. I'd still like to make an 'A-Z of Lego builders' book, but I doubt I'd have the time if I tried.

Here's something we certainly never saw: a competition. Don't disregard the prospect of a Brickspace competition: it's going to happen someday, once we build up the fund which we get from advertising here on Brickspace.

Speaking of post types which I'd like to see happen in the future, here's our never-used set review logo. Unfortunately, I've tried and failed many times to write a set review, but it always turns out to be too long-winded, and taking pictures of the set against a white background is tiring work. Someday, people, someday.

And so endeth the list of Brickspace post types of the past. I'm sure (or at least I hope) most of them will return in the coming year, and Brickspace will continue to be a Lego blog worthy of anyone's time.


That's all for this part of the Brickspace celebrations. The final part, which will be coming to you on the birthday itself (the 21st), will be all about the future of Brickspace. Don't miss it!

The cogs that make the Brickspace clock go round.

That's right, this third celebration post is all about the integral parts of Brickspace: its staff.

Back when Brickspace began, on 21st October 2008, it only had four staff: John, the admin who had been with the blog from the very beginning and three of his friends who he had invited to help him when the blog rebranded to Best of Brickshelf. Luke became the Editor of Brickspace, and has helped John with many, many features of the blog ever since. Stickman (sometimes called Tim) is a reclusive member of the blogging team, but always seemed (and still seems) to pop up every now and again for a quick creation post. Genesis sadly had to leave the blogging team in December, but she can still be found credited in the 'obituary' part of the staff page.

The new year brought with it lots of new features, as well as several new staff. The 31st of January saw Zack join Brickspace, after meeting John on the Bricks in Motion forums. Zack had been a strong pillar of the Brickspace team, always blogging now and again, making sure the blog doesn't slip away into dormancy. Similarly, Doctor Sinister, a popular member of the Lego community, joined the blog on 20th February this year by replying to the staff sign-up form. He, like Zack, has posted on a regular basis, keeping Brickspace going through rough times.

As well as the regular bloggers, other people have donated to the day-to-day blog posts here on Brickspace. Builders like Teikjoon and Gorazd posted little, but still posted a bit to matter. Unfortunately Teikjoon left the community in September, so it is expected that he has also ceased his blogging duties.

You can always enlist your help, and sign up to become a staff member! Just click the Join link in the banner above, and become part of the blogging team which is so important to Brickspace. You can be part of Brickspace's future, and have your name go up next to the other great bloggers.

It's certain that, whether you choose to help blog on Brickspace or not, there will always be a top-quality team blogging on Brickspace. Who knows what the future may bring, and who will sign up to be part of Brickspace?


~John

Brickspace through the ages

Welcome to the second celebration post about Brickspace's history.

Brickspace's logo has remained quite consistent, but one of the novels features of the blog was the different versions of the logo, to reflect current events like Christmas, or Obama's inauguration. Below are some of the best Brickspace logo variations.

Guy Fawke's Day, 2008

Hallowe'en 2008

Christmas 2008 (there was also a special bottom divider)

Easter 2009

Remembrance Day 2008

President's Day 2009 (with Lego creation by Brickspace staff member Zack)

The Brickspace logo, with its distinctive cube-and-rectangle graphic, is very versatile, as you can see above. However, with the new Brickspace 4.0 Flash animated logo, events like Hallowe'en or President's Day are harder to celebrate, because a lot more work is needed to create a special banner, re-upload it, then re-embed it into the site. At christmas this year, there will be a special banner, but sadly these won't come as often as they used to.

You may be looking at the logo and thinking: 'hey, that's not the Brickspace logo'. Well, in June/July 2009, Brickspace changed into its fourth version: Brickspace 4.0. This brought with it a new, friendlier-looking logo, without the harsh capitals of the previous logos.

The Brickspace 4.0 logo had only one other variation, for the launch of Lego Games:

That was the only variation of the new logo, for in August came the Flash animated Brickspace banner and the fun variation of the past was over. Even still, a whole new period had started for Brickspace: with a new, better-looking, easier-to-navigate site.


Stay tuned for the third celebration post!
~John

How Brickspace started...

Here's the first of a series of posts describing the history of Brickspace in its first year of existence.

Brickspace in its current form, with its current name, has been running for a year on the 21st October, but before that it was very different.

It started in March 2008, with the creation of a blog by John called 'Best Lego... Ever!'. The first ever post was showing a Lego Star Wars Republic Cruiser made by master builders, and can be found here.

John continued to blog creations on this blog for a couple of months afterwards, but in September 2008, on one very dull weekend, he decided to completely redesign the blog into something very different. The site's layout, which had before been the simple plain-black template from Blogger, was changed to a bright, white-background layout with new graphics and a new name: 'Best Lego... Ever' became 'Best of Brickshelf', with the distinctive logo of Nathan Sawaya's yellow Lego sculpture.

John invited several of his friends to help him with the blog. These included the now-editor Luke and an American penpal of John's called Genesis. She sadly left the blog on 3rd December 2008, but Luke and others like Tim have remained and still blog from time to time.

Eventually, it was decided that the name of the blog be changed because sites like MOCpages and Flickr were much easier to navigate and contained better content than Brickshelf. And so, on 21st October, the new graphics for 'Best of Brickshelf' were finished, along with another change of name... to Brickspace!

Above is the first ever logo for Brickspace. The yellow colour of the dissolving man in the Best of Brickshelf banner was kept, and added to the new banner. The cube-and-rectangle design in the back of the banner was taken from small adverts made for Best of Brickshelf, and was quickly adopted as the graphic logo for the site. From then on, and until now, Brickspace has never changed its name or that graphic logo.


The next celebration post will be coming soon!

~John

Happy Birthday Brickspace!

This month marks a big anniversary for Brickspace. Yes, on the 21st October 2009, the site will be officially one year old!

To celebrate this momentous occasion, we'll be showcasing some of the earliest Brickspace posts along with brief descriptions of the history of Brickspace, leading up to how the blog is today. We'll also be announcing some great new features, so look out for those!

You'll also notice we've put a small 'Happy Birthday!' graphic in the sidebar, just to celebrate this momentous occasion.

So, here we go, Brickspace readers. Another year. Brickspace has made it through one whole year in the blog-eat-blog world that is the Lego blogosphere, through good and bad - from months where no one could be bothered to post, to months of maniacal posting from all of our staff. Speaking of staff, they've been great. Every single one, even if they only made one post, or left the community without telling me. I owe it to them just for taking the time to set up their Blogger accounts and doing all the little details. What will the new year bring? I, for one, don't know. No one does. But I can hope, and I hope that Brickspace's second year of existence is just as fantastic and eventful as its first. Who knows how the blog will look when we get round to the 21st October 2010? Who knows what changes will have happened, what new staff, what new features?

I know one thing, for certain. And that is that, with all you readers' help, Brickspace will surely make it through another year. Thank you all. And a big thank you to all the staff who have helped blog here, past and present. Now, let's start the celebrations! And let me just wipe this tear from my eye...

Thank you all, and enjoy what will hopefully be another great year for Brickspace.

~John