LEGO My Eggo

The LEGO Group is really having a moment right now. The LEGO Movie grossed $69 million opening weekend and was #1 at the box office again this past weekend – that’s two in a row. While America has seemingly just rekindled its love affair with the brightly colored bricks, my affinity for them goes way back. LEGOs were a go-to toy in my house when I was growing up. While there were some cool kits you could buy to make a pirate ship, a police station or even some spaceships, my parents always bought us the basic blocks (okay, we were allowed to have a few mini-figures as well; my parents wanted to encourage creativity, not deprive us). That’s not to say that we didn’t build some serious LEGO cities though – it’s amazing none of us went into civil engineering. Take the work of graphic designer and LEGO artist Sachiko Akinaga for example. (See below.) Akinaga first won the title of “LEGO King” on the Japanese television variety show “TV Champion” in 2005 (she has won the title two more times since then), which led to an invitation to participate in a Lego workshop. The artist now organizes workshops for kids. She has made everything from animals to automobiles, but to me, her most impressive work looks good enough to eat. Akinga has created a jumbo parfait stuffed with “fruit” like melon, strawberry, orange, chocolate-covered crunchy biscuit sticks, soft ice cream, banana, apple, pineapple, and even cornflakes for some crunchiness. A banana she created for “TV Champion” comes complete with a working peel. If your preference is fast food, she also created a value meal that featured a hamburger, soda and fries in a bag. You can see them all here. Maybe it’s because of the movie, but Arkinga’s creations have recently been getting a lot of media attention; sites like T Magazine have and designboom have featured her work. Foodbeast, which is all about fun food trends, recently did an article on the LEGO artist and lead with a photo of a waffle complete with maple syrup and butter patties – somebody should tell Kellogg’s to get on that.