Building Minds with Customized LEGO Bricks at Bricknowlogy

Like many kids, Dean Barry, founder of Bricknowlogy™ in Eagle, Idaho, grew up playing with LEGO bricks. Today, Dean’s business offers fully customized LEGO bricks and mini-figures.

Bricknowlogy relies on a Roland LEF benchtop UV flatbed printer to produce its highly creative solutions. “The LEF is built to last, has an enclosed environment for clean printing, and the print quality is outstanding,” he said.

Dean uses the LEF to print custom faces, torsos and legs directly onto LEGO mini-figures. Another popular item is the Brickture™ – a field of bricks with two photos, one printed on each side, which can be disassembled and given as a puzzle or game. Bricknowlogy also prints party invitations on fields of bricks. “Kids get really excited about putting together the invitation,” said Dean.

“The LEF gives us so many possibilities. We’re always asking ‘what else can we do with this?’”

“No one has tried to do this with the level of quality we are able to bring with the LEF,” said Dean. “The decals on bricks and mini-figures weren’t durable enough, but printing directly on the bricks is.” Dean relies exclusively on Roland’s ECO-UV inks to guarantee his output quality.

“The color matching on the Roland is very precise. The skin tones in the photos we print come through beautifully. We also perfectly match the LEGO-branded Pantone colors,” said Dean.

With bricks that are sometimes less than half an inch wide, Dean appreciates the precision of his LEF UV printer. “It’s amazingly accurate. We print on really small pieces, and we can’t afford to have overspray,” said Dean.

In addition to serving individual customers, Bricknowlogy provides its corporate clients with innovative marketing solutions. For a realtor, he customizes LEGO houses with a welcome sign. Dean donated LEGO fire trucks customized with the fire department’s logo and the fire chief’s name on the firefighter mini-figure.

“Creativity is really important to us,” said Dean. “The LEF gives us so many possibilities. We’re always asking ‘what else can we do with this?’”