Web designers and their clients alike could have been getting inspiration lately from an unexpected source: Lego Land. Just a few months ago, there was an announcement that Lego was partnering with NASA to offer a design competition to inspire future aerospace engineers to build prototypes for air and space craft. Shortly after that piece of news, there came the story of a young woman who was chronicling her foot injury and eventual amputation of her leg. By profession an occupational therapist,

she constructed a prosthetic leg from Legos. And finally, only weeks ago, was the Guinness Book of World Records announcement that the Red Clay School District in Delaware built the largest freestanding Lego tower. Students used 500,000 bricks to construct the 112 foot, 11 ¾ inch structure.

How these individual stories can motivate us is that each of them is employing a simple tool, Legos, to make something unique and memorable. Much of the work we do together in web design is very similar, in that we have these basic building blocks of colors, imagery and text; and together we construct them in a combination of play and seriousness. We operate within some constructs, such as using responsive design, which provides a structure for how information is formatted and yet allows for fluidity in what users experience. At the same time we keep our mind open as to how we engage with users and make their experience memorable.

Our work together in website design may not rival that of futuristic air travel, prosthetics development or lead us to prominence in record-setting publications, but at least we open ourselves to possibilities, and look for inspiration, wherever that may be…

Photo Credit: Tony Fischer Photography via Compfight cc