Earlier this year, toymaker Lego Group relocated its U.S. headquarters from Connecticut to Massachusetts. Now, the state is getting a new print magazine, created by a designer and Lego dad from Acton.
It’s not officially linked to the Danish toy company, but it’s aimed at a slice of their customer base: AFOLs, or “adult fans of Lego.”
The magazine, Bricka, already has a website, but the print edition launches next week. It will be published quarterly; a combined print and digital subscription costs $80.
I spoke with founder Sam Aquillano earlier in November. (Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Scott Kirsner: Is this a side project for you? Do you have a day job?
Sam Aquillano: Yeah, I have a day job. I work for [investment firm] Edward Jones as an internal strategic designer.
Kirsner: What gave you the idea, and when did you start working on it?
Aquillano: I started working on it in mid-August of this year. I was in Gloucester, on vacation. That’s when the ideas come — when you step away, right?
I’ve been an adult fan of Lego. I’ve played with Legos as a kid, built Legos as an adult, followed folks on Instagram and sort of knew there was a community.
My kids started getting into Lego. I have four kids. We’ve been going to Boston Brick in Burlington, and then there’s New England Brick in Hudson.
Kirsner: What are those?
Aquillano: Those [stores] are not officially affiliated with Lego, but they’re a third-party seller. They have new sets. People come in and trade in their sets or sell their sets back. They also have huge tables … just filled with bricks. … Anyway, sitting at that [table] with my kids for an hour, [I noticed] it’s not kids coming into these stores. It’s adults coming in, and in particular, this one gentleman came in with an Excel spreadsheet with the pieces that he was looking for. And I was like, “What’s going on here?”
The more I dove in — following folks on Instagram — I saw even more of the community. I’m a designer. I ran Design Museum Boston, [which published a magazine.] I miss magazines. I love writing. I love magazines. I put something on LinkedIn: “Hey, I’m working on something having to do with adults and Legos. Does anyone want to chat?” I chatted with about 30 people over a couple weeks. And everyone said, “Yes. How does this not exist? Please make this.”
I start making [a prototype first issue] and showing it to people. And they were like, “So, how do I subscribe?” Wow. [I decided] I’m going all in. I set up all the e-commerce infrastructure. Now I have over 100 subscribers, and we don’t even have the magazine yet. So, it was a quick start from August to now. But … the response has been awesome.
Kirsner: Have you talked to anybody at Lego, now that their U.S. headquarters are in Boston?
Aquillano: No, I have not. [The magazine is] fully independent fan media. It’s sort of like, how much do you want to talk to them?
Kirsner: It sounds like them moving to Boston didn’t really have anything to do with having this idea.
Aquillano: No. I mean, I’m thrilled for the Boston area.
Kirsner: And in terms of doing the first [issue] of the magazine — who created the content for it?
Aquillano: I interviewed and wrote all the content myself, but I’ve worked with freelance photographers all around the country for the photos. I love to write. [I was thinking] how do I make this profitable? You know what? I’m gonna write it myself.
Kirsner: When you call yourself an adult fan, are you the type of person who has 10 or 20 sets that you leave assembled on your shelves in your basement? Give me a sense.
Aquillano: I’m in my home office now. I’ve got 12 large sets in here — a mix of Marvel and Star Wars. I’m building the Razor Crest, which is [from] The Mandalorian. It’s part of the Ultimate Collector Series. It’s one of the ten largest Lego sets, [and it’s] 80% done. And then, as my wife likes to joke, I have my backlog of sets here that are just in boxes, like the Lego Game Boy. I don’t have enough time to build it all. And then downstairs, for my kids, I just … built a custom Lego table for them. … In the middle is like a big bin where all their Legos are.
Kirsner: It looks like you’re mainly focused on the print magazine. It doesn’t look like you’re building [Bricka] as a digital product first.
Aquillano: It’s definitely print first. The articles will be on the website, and there’ll be an app. [But] the app is basically a digital version of the actual print magazine. It looks amazing on iPad. It looks OK on the phone.
Kirsner: Why are you so committed to print?
Aquillano: I feel like niche print is coming back. People want to get off screens. They want to hold something. There’s an artifact quality to it. … Then, you think about Lego being so tactile, and the actual booklets of the sets are printed. Maybe it’s this thing that people are going to want to collect … on their shelf, on their coffee table.
Kirsner: Are you thinking about having retail distribution in places like Boston Brick, New England Brick, other stores?
Aquillano: That’s my next phase, for sure. There’s [also] Bricks & Minifigs, which has over 200 locations around the U.S.
Kirsner: What makes you feel like Bricka is for adults, versus for teens or middle-schoolers who might be into Legos?
Aquillano: I’m trying to find this balance — the joy and fun, playfulness, colorfulness of Lego on one side, and then the other side is like the seriousness of high art, architecture, high fashion. … I think the adult piece is treating [these adult builders as] artists. [Lego is] their medium of choice. Some of the folks, it’s akin to painting. [There are] Lego mosaics and things like that. … There are a couple of other independent [Lego] magazines, but they’re very much [focused on] set reviews and collecting minifigs, and what’s the value of my set? Those are all good. But there hasn’t been something that’s like telling these stories around the art.
Kirsner: Did you fund this out of your own pocket for now?
Aquillano: Oh yeah, [it’s] fully self-funded. I’m trying to break even this year, which I think I will, and then we’ll see where it goes. … My expenses are extremely low. … The more people I get this in front of from the Lego community … as soon as they hear about it, they’re like, “All right, yeah, I need to get this.” The signals are all good.
Kirsner: My last question: Where do you build your Lego sets? Do you and your kids build sets in the same place?
Aquillano: My kids, you buy them a set, they build it, [and then] 24 to 48 hours later, it’s in pieces. … I build with them downstairs. But they also know that, you know, Daddy’s Legos, like the Star Wars ship, I build those in my home office, and display them in here.
And they are not to be played with.
Kirsner: “Don’t steal pieces from dad’s sets.” You’re like the Will Ferrell character from The Lego Movie. I guess he is the worst-case scenario if you’re an adult fan of Lego, right?
Aquillano: Yeah — President Business. They have called me that guy. Well, I don’t glue [the pieces] together. But my kids say, “It might as well be. It’s just sitting there.”
