This Is What Every Writer’s “La Petite Mort” Looks Like!

Even if you’re not into toys, this one, I guarantee you’ll be drooling for…

And that ladies and gentlemen, gender-fluids, non-binaries, furries, aliens, and superheroes — just making sure I’m covering everyone here — is what we call a timeless French expression, and it’s a perfectly legit way to draw you into a story. Specifically, this story. The good news is — for the prudes (who Googled or speak French) who started to cringe — that this story is not about what you might think it is. Having said that, if you’re a writer, there’s a very high chance you’ll want what I have, and yes, it’s a toy, and yes, abso-feckin-lutely yes, you’ll be drooling once you see it.

So, without further ado, meet my latest acquisition, one I was about to completely miss. At the very last minute, I managed to get my hands on a brand-new one. The very last one in the shop. Has been sold out for many weeks — even on the official site — and it’s a minor miracle my local store suddenly had one in stock. Meet the Lego Ideas Typewriter. Told ya, it’s not what you think it’s about… 😆

A Lego set like no other before…

What’s infinitely cool about the Lego Idea sets is that they all originate in some random Lego fan’s mind, usually an AFOL (adult fan of Lego), who just builds something they imagined and submits it to the Lego site for votes. Lego has been doing this for many years, and I have a number of Ideas sets already, like the Ship in a Bottle and the Doctor Who set. Some of these are on the smaller end, while others like the Typewriter, set 21327 I managed to get my hands on, is definitely on the larger end of the Ideas sets range. Of course, as with everything, the original creator’s idea gets “edited” so to speak, just like a book would, and the final result is something more polished and ready for production. Just to compare, take a look at the original idea. Lego’s designers certainly improved on that in a big way!

The Lego Ideas Typewriter, as I said before, is not a small set. At over 2000 pieces with an end-result measuring 27×26×11 cm (WDH), this needs both time to build and space to display. I spent around six hours building it. In fairness, I could have done it a bit faster, but taking photos of some of the major steps, switching between concerts to watch while building, did slow me down a bit. Speaking of concerts, while building the set, I watched Beatrice Egli’s Kick Im Augenblick, Nashville in Concert at the Royal Albert Hall and Andrea Berg’s Atlantis. Here’s a clip from each for your viewing/listening pleasure.

I think it’s worth highlighting, that I am not at all new to Lego and various building techniques. While it took me six hours, anyone new to building brick sets, especially fairly complex ones like this, will definitely need to do it in more than one sitting over the course of around 8–10 hours in total.

While there is some repetition at the beginning, in fact, the entire first step is just repeating a few patterns building the arms for all the letter keys, they’re not the easiest of steps, and they’re all Technic style building, which to many will feel quite unusual. Having said that, once you’re past that bit, the only truly complex bit is placing all those arms into the frame.

This part is actually less so about complexity and more about just really paying attention to the steps, as a quick glance at the instructions will not suffice. I have the Porsche 911 GT3 RS as well, which is a pretty damn complex build, and I don’t remember many moments needing to pay that much attention. The Typewriter will most definitely teach you patience like few other sets will. Check out the 11 stages of the build!

Besides learning patience, though, you also learn a ton of new building techniques and discover clever uses of various pieces. And the fun doesn’t even stop there. While — granted — this is a set meant to be displayed, Lego is also meant to be played with more than once. Taking just this set apart, I can see so many other builds you can use your creativity for. The set has wheels, plates, small bricks, large bricks, smooth bricks, even metallic bricks as well, lots of curved pieces, and a surprising amount of Technic pieces as well. If you want to see all the parts that come with this set, head over to Rebrickable.

Does it work?

The question that seems to be on everyone’s mind when I show them the Typewriter is: “does it work?” Well, when it comes to Lego, the definition of “it works” can wildly vary. But in this case, the answer is — “Yeah, it kinda does, actually!”

• You can press almost every key, and the keys have decent travel.
• Every time you press a key, there is a distinct sound made by the hammer that would normally stamp the letter onto the paper.
• The entire platen mechanism that holds the paper can be pushed to the right as with a normal typewriter, and as you hit the keys, it will start moving back towards the left bit by bit on every key-press.
• The paper fingers that keep the paper stuck to the platen can also be raised and lowered.
• You can actually feed an A5 size-ish page into the typewriter.

On that note, the set comes with an additional booklet in 43 languages, each page perforated so that you can use the one in your language to feed into the Typewriter. I chose Hungarian. The page — translated to English — says:

Dear LEGO® friend

It gives me great pleasure that this set, created by fan designer Steve Guinness and the LEGO® Ideas team, has made its way to your desk.

My great-grandfather and LEGO founder, Ole Kirk Kristiansen was born in 1891, just a few years after the typewriter and telephone were invented. Both inventions revolutionized communication and played a big part in developing modern businesses across the globe.

Ole’s first typewriter sat on his desk when he founded the company. In 1958, my grandfather, Godtfred, typed the patent application on a typewriter much like this one for the LEGO System bricks you can find in this set. We still have the documents on display in the LEGO House History Collection.

Technology has evolved by leaps and bounds, but the sight and sounds of classic typewriters still remind me of visiting my grandfather and my father, Kjeld, in their offices when I was a child. It felt exciting and important, and they let me write stories and secret messages on their typewriters.

One thing remains the same to this day. We still aim to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow and it always amazes me how fans and LEGO Ideas designers express their creative talents with LEGO bricks. Keep rebuilding our world — always.

Kind regards, Thomas Kirk Kristiansen

Before you head off to the shop…

This is now a hard to find set, but with a bit of luck either on the Lego site or some local shop will still have one or two sets in stock. What’s usually bad news, in this case it’s good, that the price is fairly high at around 200 bucks, so there’s less of a chance of someone picking it up before you get to the shop.

It’s totally worth it, though. It’s an outstanding build, and a gorgeous set to display, which can offer plenty of parts to reuse later for other builds. Having said that, if this is your first-ever set, give yourself a lot of time. I would generally not recommend anyone this as their first set regardless of age, but I still think if you’re into typewriters and you really like it, you should get it and then just learn to be patient and build it slowly. Hell, there’s no-one rushing you. Take a whole month to build it if you need to!

The Lego Idea series are always the most inspiring to build. They merge a regular Lego fan’s vision, like me, with one of a Lego designer’s. Building and displaying these sets is an almost intimate, shared experience between two fans and the original father of Lego. The Typewriter delivers on that 100%!

Attila Vago — Software Engineer improving the world one line of code at a time. Cool nerd since forever, writer of codes and blogs. Web accessibility advocate, Lego fan, vinyl record collector. Loves craft beer!