The designer behind LEGO Icons 10312 Jazz Club has acknowledged the set raises ‘the topic of yellow minifigures’, potentially building the case for moving towards more realistic skin tones.
While licensed sets have used realistic skin tones for nearly two decades, we’ve also since seen the LEGO Group move away from yellow-skinned characters in original themes like Friends and DUPLO, while this year’s 21337 Table Football is the first non-IP set to include a range of diverse skin tones. But other System themes like NINJAGO, Creator 3-in-1 and the Modular Buildings Collection still use yellow minifigures – a policy that LEGO designer Anderson Grubb had to navigate for 10312 Jazz Club.
LEGO fan media Tips & Bricks spoke to Grubb about the possibility of introducing realistic skin tones for next year’s modular building, noting that one of the set’s musicians has ‘textured hair that could code them as being black, but a yellow minifigure doesn’t capture this well’.
“I can confirm that was the original intention with the textured hair, because jazz is rooted in black culture,” Grubb told T&B, before conceding that he wasn’t able to shift the subtheme towards realistic skin tones. “The topic of yellow minifigures is a broader question than just the [modular buildings], and the policy remains the same for modulars to include yellow minifigures.”
As is, 10312 Jazz Club still manages to represent a diverse range of people, with an even split of genders and styles across its eight minifigures. The musician coded as black also has a hearing aid (which isn’t the first time we’ve seen such a device on a minifigure). Given the LEGO Ideas team has outright stated realistic skin tones offer greater ‘representation, diversity and inclusivity’, however, the next logical step is surely moving away from yellow minifigures altogether.
It's a polarising issue, no doubt, so it’s not a decision the LEGO Group is ever likely to make lightly – and as Grubb’s comments suggest, it’s one that will represent a huge policy shift for the company. The minifigures in modular buildings have already undergone one change, though, as 2018’s 10260 Downtown Diner switched out classic smiley faces for unique and detailed prints.
Doing away with yellow minifigures would be a more seismic shift, but we wouldn’t rule it out altogether: as we discussed earlier this year, 21337 Table Football could be just the beginning.
10312 Jazz Club launches January 1, 2023. Click here to see more images of the set.
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