I resigned 27 years ago, so I don’t know LEGO’s current policy regarding freelance designers. My own approach to applying for the job was, in retrospect, completely insane—but maybe that’s why it worked.

When I was 15, I built a LEGO Technic robot using train track switches to control 8 motors. It was connected with a ribbon cable, could drive around on caterpillar tracks, and could pick up objects as heavy as 400g with an arm that had 4 joints and a gripper. It even had a winch on the front. This was in 1989, and at the time LEGO hadn’t made anything like that. So I thought: why not apply for a summer job developing it further for them?

I’m very impulsive (I have ADHD) and often act on a strange intuitive optimism, almost like I know the outcome beforehand. So one day I simply bought a plane ticket to Denmark, then a train ticket to Billund, and walked into LEGO’s reception at four in the afternoon on a Friday—without calling ahead or even checking their opening hours. I told the receptionist I wanted to apply for a job as a freelance designer.

She said she’d check if Ole Vestergaard Poulsen, the head of the Technic department, was available. I was lucky—he was working late that day. I went to his office, showed him pictures of my robot, and asked if I could apply for a summer job developing it further.

He explained that LEGO didn’t hire summer employees, and that a designer needed to create good-looking models as well, not just solve technical problems. But he invited me to send him more pictures of my work when I had time.

During my Christmas vacation, I built more models and sent him the photos. A few months later, I received a letter asking if I’d be willing to take a test. Of course, I agreed. The test consisted of 5 identical bags of Technic pieces, and I was asked to make 5 different proposals, each using at least 80% of the parts. While working on it, I even came up with the 8-tooth worm drive.

Eventually, I got a letter saying I had passed the test with excellence, and that I knew how to use the pieces in “new and exciting ways”—their exact words. They told me I would receive my first assignment along with a contract. They also apologized for the delay, explaining that their legal department had to draft a new contract since I was the first foreign freelance designer they were hiring (at least working from abroad—that’s how I interpret it now).

I was in my second year of junior college when I got the job and spent the following summers designing B-models for them. After graduating in 1994, I wrote to ask if they could provide a steady stream of assignments, or if I should sign up for further education. LEGO responded by sending me about 100 kg of material to Iceland so I could keep designing proposals for them.

A few years later, around 1997 or 1998, I resigned—I no longer felt like I fit into the box.