The History And Future Of LegoGenre And EverydayBricks

LegoGenre 00001: In The Criminal Justice System

LegoGenre | 00001: In the criminal justice system…

The Early Days

LegoGenre originally started out as a Tumblr, way back in 2012. The name LegoGenre was selected, it was a reference to the multiple themes (or Genres) that are popular in Lego. So, the very first picture was posted in January and for over a year was the best way to find my photos. The whole project was a a way to engage with my reignited Lego obsession. And at that time, LegoGenre would focus on photos of Minifigures taken from their prospective.

For the first two months I was working on a daily photo challenge. That was going to lead to a creative burn out, so soon afterwards the project settled into a three photos per week project. It was a satifying time, and soon LegoGenre began to expand. Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts were established. The whole project was getting a good response.

One thing about the Lego community is that there are a few major places where photos and projects get shared. The biggest and more vibrant community is found on Flickr. So a new LegoGenre Flickr account was made. It quickly became time consuming to post each new photo on all these services. So it was decided that something needed to change.

LegoGenre’s LegoGenre Mosaic

LegoGenre.com And Blogging

In 2013 I chose to get out of the Tumblr system and venture off on my own. Once the idea was formed it was relatively easy to get started. It was decided to run the website myself and to use the WordPress platform. So in April of 2013 LegoGenre.com was officially born. As I was posting my photos of Lego on the new website, I though why not highlight Lego photos, MOCs and News from other people.

LegoGenre would slowly take off over the next few months, eventually finding a small audience. A big thanks to all the visitors and fans during this time. Your support and engagement helped to push LegoGenre into expanding and is a large part in why it stuck around.

The small ad revenue during this time kept the website online. (A thank you to anyone who clicked on them!) This activity lasted for a few years, but the slowing of traffic mixed with less posting put the website into decline. There were a lot of little things that bothered me about the site (more details in an upcoming post) and a change needed to happen.

EverydayBricks Lego Relief, LegoGenre and EverydayBricks

The Future Of LegoGenre And EverydayBricks

LegoGenre is now EverydayBricks! The new website is focused on loading faster. With less outside calls (less plugins and features). The new simpler design is also focused on providing a better mobile and tablet experience. Besides checking out the site every day, you can also follow LegoGenre and EverydayBricks on a new Twitter account: https://twitter.com/everyday_bricks which is focused only on website updates.

This is a great time for EverydayBricks. Some of planned content includes:

• Daily posts/updates. (Mostly MOCs from other people, and official Lego news. The Every Day Bricks.)

• LegoGenre Photos. (A focus on photos of Minifigures taken from their prospective.)

• More original reviews. (Lego Modulars, and other official sets, past and present)

• More original features. (Longer wordcount posts with thoughts on Lego, projects, and games)

Make sure to update your website bookmarks to http://everydaybricks.com and check back often to see all the new stuff. Thanks!

Build Something Awesome with Google’s Build with Chrome Website

Google and Lego: Build with Chrome

Google and Lego have teamed up to create the “Build with Chrome” experiment. You can create and share Lego projects through a WebGL based website that is designed to be used with Google Chrome. Although I had no trouble at all using Apple Safari. There are three modes to explore on the website, a map of the world that lets you look at other peoples creations, the actual building website, and the “Build Academy.” Minifigures from the Lego Movie make cameo appearances in the Build Academy, which is a series of tutorials.

Build with Chrome started out in Australia as an experiment. Since then the site has been expanded out and now covers the whole world. You can pick a piece of unbuilt land, or use a randomly assigned plot to design your creation. Each plot is a 32×32 baseplate, with coloring based on a low resolution Google Map of the surrounding area. There are 21 basic bricks that come in 10 colors. Which means the LDD has nothing to worry about for now…

http://youtu.be/r4TIkhm2tWc

Check out the Build with Chrome website here: http://www.buildwithchrome.com