Heritage of Jørn Thomsen - Legendary LEGO Designer (1956-2023)

[grohl]

A year ago we lost legendary LEGO Designer Jørn Thomsen who was behind many of our favourite LEGO SPACE sets. As his colleague, I paid tribute to some of his marvelous designs.

 

Edited March 15, 2024 by grohl

[JulianH]

What a great tribute, thanks for sharing Milan.

As a kid, these big space sets were out of my reach, but I certainly was drooling over them in catalogues. Fantastic to see them in action in this video. I did not realise they had so many moving functions, probably seeing that for the first time in action now.

Also great to see these classics in such good condition in good hands!

[SpacePolice89]

I have so many childhood memories of many of these sets and others I've acquired later in life. I liked them very much as a kid and I still do. Back then I didn't know who designed them but later I found out that Jørn Thomsen designed them. All of these sets are so great. He was a truly legendary designer and his work has made millions of kids (and adults) happy. These are the sets that got me interested in Lego and when I build spaceships and other vehicles these sets serve as inspiration and motivation for me. Great tribute video.

[Artanis I]

Wow, I have all of those sets except the Technic one at the end (okay, so most were only picked up 15-20 years ago through Bricklink & eBay). And they are amazing! Yes the style is outdated now, but the play features, colours, and part usage are great.

[CP5670]

He had a huge impact on so many of us worldwide. I used to spend hours staring at these sets in the catalogs as a kid and picked them up on ebay in the late 90s.

[EamonnMR]

Sad to hear about him for the first time this way.

Is there a place where we can see the designers of other sets of the era? It would be really interesting to trace different designer's styles through the years, the way we can see Thomsen develop his cleverly hidden play features.

[Jeff of Clubs]

RIP, Spaceman.

[Alexandrina]

On 5/15/2024 at 9:45 PM, EamonnMR said:

Sad to hear about him for the first time this way.

Is there a place where we can see the designers of other sets of the era? It would be really interesting to trace different designer's styles through the years, the way we can see Thomsen develop his cleverly hidden play features.

If I remember rightly, Brickset has designers listed for some sets (and clickable, so you can click their name and see what else they worked on) but it's not comprehensive. Not sure if there's any more complete resource out there