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

Wear Lego!

Thinking of buying a new shirt? Something to quench your Lego needs? Well, look no further than ThinkGeek.com's Brick Construction Shirt. Yes that's right, you can wear a TIE Fighter on your chest!

Or, if you're a fan of short-lived only-good-for-the-fleshies Lego series, why not stick a car on your shirt?

Finally, let's not forget everybody's favourite T-Shirt attachment: a Taun-Taun!

  There's also some way of wearing Mega-Bloks and K'NEX (didn't that die out in the nineties?) to your crazy shirt.

OK, Crazy idea aside (let's also put the whole "you're wearing Lego on your shirt, you're going to hit someone and it's all going to fall off and smash" thing aside too), it an ingenious concept. I'll give it that.

~John

More Power Miners 2010 pics, first look at SPIII 2010

Dano, in his infinite kindness and maybe-having-a-bit-too-much-spare-time-ness, has brought our attention to some pictures of three new Lego 2010 sets, to be released on the 1st January. Here's the line-up:

First up is the first non-box art picture of the 2010 Power Miners collection. This 'magma mech' is sporting the new 1x3 tiles which have thrown up a lot of controversy in the community, as well as more lime green, a water tank, and another lemon-shaped rock monster. More pictures here.

Then there's our first look at Space Police 2010, with some great-looking new visors and alternate-colour variants of all your favourite aliens. This mini ship's called 'Space Police Raid VPR', and will cost a measly $13. More pictures here.

Finally, here's 'Lego Space Smash 'n' Grab', a $20 set with some great new parts, including a trans-yellow windscreen (one for all you Neo-Classic Spacers out there!), light bley 1x3 tiles, and what looks like a space ATM, along with some purple goodness. More pictures here.

When we get more pictures, I'll let you guys know!

~John

All new brickspace gold!

A short while ago I posted about an all new brickspace gold, and here it is! The next award is the annual special, polling starts on the 1st of December. Don't forget to send us your nominations, and please read the presentation for more information.




-Luke, editor

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