My LEGO Wall - From Work Tool to Art Installation

If you've visited my home in the last 5+ years or had a video call with me, you've noticed my LEGO Wall. It's a conversation starter for adults and a magnet for kids.

What you might not know is how it got started. Yes, I'm a long time AFOL (Adult Fans of LEGO) and was lucky to have many sets as a child, which my brother later expanded. But my current collection began because I'm not a good illustrator.

I started buying LEGO minifigures for client pitches while running my experience design practice. Hiring designers and illustrators to visualise concepts was expensive, so I took photos of minifigures representing people in the experience, explaining scenes with captions and speech bubbles.

For this reason, I sought out minifigures that resembled "regular" people rather than fantastic creatures or superheroes. The LEGO store's build-your-own-figure option was perfect for getting the characters I needed.

At the time I was going through a rather minimalist nomadic lifestyle and it was difficult to carry all the pieces with me, so I went on buying them and storing them here and there. Around those years LEGO started issuing special edition "mystery bag" figures and I got hooked by those too. When I moved to London and finally gathered all my belongings, I fixed a couple of LEGO baseplates to my living room wall to display the characters I'd collected. As my collection grew, I adjusted what had become an art installation rather than a business tool.

My LEGO Wall now comprises 420 minifigures, with several more stored for an eventual expansion (I need bigger walls!).