Josh On Design

No Starch Press is on a roll with its series of Lego themed books. While most of them are about model ideas or construction techniques, Beautiful Lego is different. This is a Lego art book. In classic coffee table style it is filled with gorgeous photos to thrill the reader. Beautiful Lego does not seek to discuss 'can Lego be art', but takes it as fact. These are works by artists, just artists using the medium of Lego instead of paint or clay, and the results speak for themselves. Stunning.

Beautiful Lego is written and photographed by Mike Doyle, a lego artist himself as well as an excellent graphic designer, but features the work of over 70 different artists. The book is organized by topic -- spaceships, people, architecture, robots -- with interviews of artists interspersed. Each artist is asked the single question: "Why Lego?"; with an immense variety of answers. There is a common theme, though: the desire to create using an incredibly malleable medium.

Some models are beautiful and some are terrifying, such as "The Doll" (pg 5) and "Disscected Frog" (pg 79). The architectural models really shine; good use of the few curvy pieces in Lego can make amazing results. There is even political art: The Power of Freedom (page 124).

Beautiful Lego surprised me by the diversity of styles within the medium of Lego. Some are hyper detailed, some expressive, some minimalist. Angus MacLane has a cute style known in the book as CubeDudes, which are head on caricatures of famous figures like President Lincoln, Kirk and Spock, and the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man. (page 36)

You will appreciate the book on two levels. First, the beauty or expression of the piece, then a second time as you pour over the photos trying to figure out "How did they do that with Lego?" Mike Doyle's victorian house series in particular will amaze you with the flexibility of Lego. (And make you wonder how big his Lego collection is:) While re-reading the book for this review, I'm struck by how much good photography makes a difference when experiencing a model.

I heartily recommend Beautiful Lego to the adult Lego fan in your life. It just might make you pull out the bin from the garage and build a few orignal models yourself. And yes, there is a Freddy Mercury model called Fried Chicken.

Beautiful Lego can be purchased from No Starch Press, Amazon, or Barnes and Nobel.