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The LEGO Company History
When Ole Kirk Christiansen founded his workshop in Billund, Denmark in 1932 the workshop was a woodworking facility that made furniture and toys. The business was not lucrative and he struggled through the 1930s. In 1934, he decided to concentrate on toys and changed the name of the company to LEGO. This is an abbreviation for “leg godt” which is the Danish word meaning “play well”.
In the 1960s, the business expanded to other Nordic countries. The company designed a smaller brick, ideal for small hands. It was named DUPLO (after the Latin word duplex, which is a reference to a twofold). This allowed children of a younger age to build more intricate models.
In the 1970s Lego began to add new features that made its products stand apart from the competition. They introduced different faces to the miniature figures. This change made the figures more real and capable of communicating different emotions and facial expressions. The Lego Group also added wheels to its bricks, which opened up the possibility of creating vehicles and other machines that could move.
The company’s next step was when it launched dedicated themes — systems within systems that allowed customers to create a specific world or situation. The company was able boost its brand’s recognition and draw a younger audience. The company also increased its production by opening factories in South Korea and Malaysia.