By Jocelyn Buhlman
LEGO and Disney are teaming up to celebrate some of our favorite Disney Duos in all-new sets just in time for the company’s 100th anniversary! Before you start building these besties, we sat down with the designer of these perfect pairings. Designer Illia Gotlib gave us the inside scoop on how LEGO sets are made and how the worlds of Disney inspire his creativity and designs.
D23: The Official Disney Fan Club: What is the coolest part of your job? What is the most surprising part?
Illia Gotlib: My favorite part of the job is creating toys for kids that will inspire storytelling and creativity, much in the same way that LEGO sets did for me when I was a child. The most surprising part was that some of the designers that made my favorite LEGO sets as a kid 30 years ago are still working here—it’s incredibly humbling!
D23: When did you first realize you had a talent for designing LEGO sets?
IG: I’ve enjoyed building my own creations with LEGO bricks ever since I was a child, but I only realized that designing sets could be a real possibility for me after I started working here as an engineer. I made friends with some of the other designers and many of our evenings the first few years in Denmark were spent just building fun LEGO models together.
D23: Do you have a favorite memory from your time working at LEGO? A favorite Disney set you’ve designed?
IG: I really enjoyed working on 21326 Winnie the Pooh both because it evoked such a strong cozy, nostalgia from those childhood films and stories as well as because it was made through the LEGO Ideas platform. That means that a fan submitted the design and then we worked together with him to bring it to life, which made the product development extra special.
D23: How did you decide which characters would be featured for the duos?
IG: We had a lot of brainstorms as a team to come up with pairs that could best represent different eras of Disney films, bring variety to the overall Disney100 product lines that we were making as LEGO sets and—of course—be fun to build! Early on we started with some wonderful sketch models of Lumiere and Cogsworth from Ollie Gregory [another designer on the team].
D23: Do you have a favorite pairing or a pairing you relate to the most from the duo sets?
IG: I have vivid memories of watching Beauty and the Beast when I was little, so I’m really happy to include Cogsworth and Lumiere. I was also excited to work on Percy since we have two pugs at home. So it was a happy coincidence to get to build one out of LEGO bricks.
D23: What were some of the biggest challenges you faced when designing the sets, and how did you overcome them?
IG: One of the biggest challenges is balance—finding the right balance between the reference in the movies and the LEGO design style. We’re making something recognizable and also buildable by kids, so sometimes it’s finding a new interpretation or way of building something that we’ve already done before.
D23: What advice do you have for any aspiring LEGO design masters reading this interview?
IG: I think the best thing to do is practice building different things—challenge yourself to build something you typically wouldn’t make—that’s a common need in our jobs as LEGO designers. I look at LEGO bricks as an artistic medium, much like drawing or painting, so practice is one of the best ways to improve your skillset. We have designers from all kinds of backgrounds, but Product Design is a path to consider if you’re in university.