Worse is Better: Lego

You may be aware of Worse is Better. I have just noticed another example that has been staring me in the face for years.

My mother-in-law played with Bayko while growing up, and obtained some for our children to play with. The rod and block system is more complicated than Lego, but produces better buildings. For example, it has special, fiddly bricks to make the corners look good, and that works. Lego produced inferior models, but was more successful commercially. Lego is "Worse is Better".

However, this goes much further than just a comparison to Bayko. Lego models often don't look like the thing that they look like. They look like Lego models of those things. They put a bound on the difficulty that goes into producing the model and the accuracy that can be produced, and limit the complexity of the model, compared to, say, a genuine scale model that strives for accuracy. The little bumps are pretty much an aesthetic feature - they can be a code for "in the real world, there'd be fine-grain detail here".

This isn't a bad thing. After all, by working within self-imposed constraints, you can often create fresh and interesting things. Lego models can be distinctive, and the ways of using limited palettes to best advantage can be very creative.

The limitations of the material are what make it so good. Worse is Better.

Posted 2017-04-16.