Why do Lego minifigures have a hole in their head?

An article by Siddharth Vishwakarma

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Why do Lego mini-figures have a hole in their head?

From head to toe, LEGO bricks have been adored for decades. Some of us have literally grown up building castles, helicopters, ships, whatever we could imagine with the little green, red, blue and yellow blocks while infusing our dreams into them. Yes!! We’ve all been touched.

Going ahead and talking of heads, the iconic brand – LEGO just answered the most awaited question that puzzled us for so long.

Why do we see a hole in the heads of LEGOs Mini-figurines?

Its often considered a bizarre feature in the design by those amongst us who love to think and wreck our brains with the nitty gritties of design. The thought of why?? has been muddling people since 1978. Some among us are dead sure, the designers at LEGO must have done it with some purpose in their head (no pun intended). But this purpose was a bit obscure until now.

Let’s go by its usage

The hole can stick to the other brick or maybe can don a hat, but why would anyone want to fix a humanoid head over Lego brick. Doesn’t make sense, does it?

Gizmodo found a better and bona-fide answer to this question:

“We added this hole on the top of the head just in case any kids got one of the heads stuck on their throat. That way they would be able to keep breathing”

Remaining sensitive to the reason as to why this protrusion exists, Lego has gone ahead and reflected on other topics such as why we find a warning tag on the toy boxes along with the recommended age group. This is because the industry has sort of decided the irrelevancy of an essential design feature which undermines the Dieter Rams Ten good principles of “good design”. Along with Dieter’s principles, it reflects the industry and the common norm within the toy industry of the ignorance towards kids and the correlation of safety in toy design.

Lego’s design has broken some barriers

Since its inception and having gone through few changes (like getting angrier faces for the past 20 years) in the past, Lego’s design has broken some barrier or the other over the years.
The protrusion from the head was designed but was never promoted, this feature was a bit obtrusive to the design initially and an anomaly to the design community. Now the same feature has become the most recognizable and strongest gimmick of branding in the toy industry.

Considering the presence of Lego since 1978, it was good to learn of this feature finally in 2013. I’m still amazed; that they could keep it a secret for this long. Or may be none of us asked the question for so long. Has this question ever bothered you?