Adam Ward - How to Build Amazing Things with 100-ish Bricks or Fewer

STUFF IN THE FRONT

STUFF IN THE BACK

Ah, the humble LEGO. A simple plastic brick. Made of pure acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene. Hollow on one side and studded on the other. Multicolored. The brightest possible greens and reds and blues. From an obscure factory in Denmark. From a random assemblage of LEGO, one can build most anythinga pirate ship, a star cruiser, fake teeth, even a working toaster oven! (Okay, maybe I lied about the last two.)

When I was a child, LEGO were the little plastic keys to another universe. A universe of engineered imagination. For the 5- to 10-year-old little Rainn, those tiny, snappy bricks occupied hundreds of hours of my life. And do I want those hours back? No, sir. That was time spent in peaceful, quiet creativity, building LEGO on the knotty canvas of the 70s deep-pile carpet of our 1,000-square-foot rental house in suburban Seattle. (Im convinced there are still some 2x2 bricks lost to eternity in that polyester shag!) The artistic line that was drawn from a (literal) shoebox full of little cubes, bricks, planks, and blocks to their eventual formation into a race car, or spaceship, or phantasmagorical house was a magical one. Ill never forget those countless tiny moments of specific realizations that led to a mind-blowing build: Oooohhh, if I snap this little doohickey on the opposite side of this element, I can match it on the other side, creating a symmetrical look and feel, and snap a plate underneath, like THAT! (snaps plate), then I can create the longest, most swooshable flying laser gun known to man!

And what is swooshable, you might ask? Well, its a real, technical term: the kinetic, palpable ability of something youve built to SWOOSH through the air in a supercool way, sparking the imagination and inspiration. (As well as sparking whatever gun/jet/swooshing/afterburner sounds you can make out of the side of your mouth.)

And now? Im an adult and, sadly, not much in my life is swooshable anymore. However, I have a really cool job. I get paid to pretend to be other people. How amazing is that?! From one world of pretend to another. Every once in a while, I pinch myself and think, What a ridiculous way to make a living!!!

Heres another ridiculous (AND swooshable) way to make a living. Get people to pay you to play with LEGO! Just like Adam Ward. Adam is a LEGO artist, magician, and creativity guru. Now, there are a lot of LEGO builders out there on the inter-webs and the YouTubes. Assembling Star Wars kits in a time-lapse video; showing you how to make a castle with real, working catapults; unboxing a new LEGO set, fresh from the factory in Denmark; etc. But what Adam does is extraordinary. He builds LEGO with heart. With soul. His creations inspire and uplift!

Adam can build life-size rainbow unicorns WITHOUT INSTRUCTIONS. He just looks at a pile of LEGO, and like a master builder from The LEGO Movie, the parts fuse together conceptually in his brain. He can build signs using a custom LEGO alphabet. And he makes useful things out of LEGO, too. Not just rocket ships and miniature Ferris wheels. But picture frames. iPhone cases. Coasters. Key docks. (I need to talk to him about getting one of those. My keys never seem to be where I know I just put them.)

Over 10 years ago, I started the media company SoulPancake with some friends. It was a forum to create inspiring media content for young people. We wanted to connect humans. Uplift them. Give viewers a vision for a loving, noble future for humanity, but do it via pure ENTERTAINMENT! And when we added Adam to our roster, we knew we had found someone truly special. Adam is the definition of SoulPancake-y. He works hard to find joy and light in every day. He is a master of the well-timed dad joke. He even leads device-free retreats into the wilderness for adults because he believes meaningful human connection matters. And SoulPancake is a human connection company! Match. Made. Mind. Blown.

And the fans responded. More than 8 million views across 24 episodes. LEGO nerds, art nerds, regular nerds have united to make Brick x Brick one of our most beloved series. And now? The show has become a book! Take it with you everywhere! Show it off! Leave it on your (LEGO) coffee table. Give it to your niece who wants to use LEGO to soar into other dimensions! Buy 175 of these books and use them to make a tree house in your backyard! Just use your imagination. And your heart.

And so, I leave you with this here booklovingly constructed with Adams taste, style, humor, and vision, as well as his radically beautiful builds. There are also some fan favorites from our Brick x Brick YouTube series in its pages! Its a celebration of LEGO as a tool for creating something beautiful and soul-felt. Something that is still super-duper cool but has some greater meaning in the world. Because this is what we do at SoulPancakewe try to make the commonplace magical, spark conversation, connect through creativity, and, above all, make life more SWOOSHABLE!!!