Do you like building with LEGO? If so, becoming a LEGO Model Designer might be a dream job for you. As a LEGO designer you can travel around the world and meet lots of different people. You might build a huge castle at LEGOLAND, construct a model for a LEGO movie, or design a LEGO play set and figure out what pieces need to go in the box. Working as a LEGO designer is an awesome mix of art and technology that requires both creativity and engineering skills.

According to the LEGO company, designers usually study 3D art in college. Some might also study architecture, industrial design, theater design, carpentry, or sculpture. The best advice is to play with LEGO sets as much as possible.

LEGO suggests starting out by trying to build realistic things. When the company interviews people to become designers, they ask them to build a head out of LEGO bricks. They also recommend that you try to create unusual combinations of things, like a flying horse or a bouncing car. Finally, they suggest that you try to blend your ideas with a piece of music, a story, or a picture.

In addition to studying 3D art, many LEGO designers have studied mathematics and engineering. Studying English is also good for explaining your ideas. Learning about business can be helpful too.

On your path to becoming a LEGO designer, you might encounter LEGO in the classroom. Chris Rogers, an engineering professor, teamed up with LEGO to create Robolab. It is a robotic approach to learning science and math using LEGO that is taught in over 50,000 schools around the world. Chris’s teaching method is based on the idea of “design thinking,” which means that students imagine solutions first and work backwards towards the problem. He teaches kids to make an educated guess and conduct experiments to test their thinking.  Chris says, “They see that there is no right or wrong answer, just an infinite number of ways to address a problem. Learning that is as critical to engineering as it is to life.” That lesson is a valuable one for any career, especially a dream job working with LEGO.