It’s no surprise that Brent Waller, the fan designer behind LEGO Ideas 21328 Seinfeld, is a huge fan of the sitcom. But you may be surprised to learn that so are the professional LEGO designers who took his concept to its finished form.
Model Designer César Soares and Graphic Designer Crystal Fontan loved Seinfeld so much that along with a colleague they’d already played around with designing an entire LEGO theme based on the critically acclaimed 1990s sitcom just for fun. That just-for-fun projected included dreaming up an entire line of Collectible Minifigures.
Blocks magazine asked the designers who their favourite characters are in the show and if there was anyone they’d have liked to add to the set.
‘I’m torn between Kramer and George. I love them both,’ César laughs. ‘I love all of them. But George and Kramer are probably my top two favourites. If I had to choose one, it’s really hard but probably Kramer just because of all the physical acting and goofiness that he has, all these little ticks and things. He’s just very, very funny.’
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‘If we could, we would have everyone in there,’ says Crystal. ‘Well, I would have my third favourite character in there, but it doesn’t make sense. It was David Putty, with the 8 ball jacket and then the devil face. But it wouldn’t make sense, so we only picked the characters that we thought made sense in this set. And Newman was a great addition. He’s a neighbour and he’s always meddling in their affairs.’
Given that these designers know the show inside out, they stuffed it with deep cut references. ‘We had to have the bike,’ César explains. ‘It’s in Brent’s submission, too. And the bike changes colour throughout the show, but it’s mostly green, so we decided on green. Our co-operation with Brent was really good. He is also a super fan and he was always coming with funny easter eggs. For instance, one of the Easter eggs that he suggested is the commando air conditioner.’
To find out the full story of the original Seinfeld project that César and Crystal worked on, how Brent came up with the idea and much, much more, check out the feature in Blocks magazine Issue 82.