LEGO announced yesterday (the 30th) that it will replace the original "LEGO Creator Expert" with "LEGO ICONS" as a new series name. This new series will integrate other sets targeting adult consumers that do not belong to the existing Technic, Architecture, or Ideas series. Adjustments are expected to be made on the official website first on June 1, 2022, while physical sets featuring the LEGO ICONS logo are anticipated to appear starting in 2023.
Within the LEGO Creator series, products with a higher piece count and more complex building methods were often categorized under the Creator Expert sub-theme. This included the highly familiar Modular Buildings (Street View) that many toy enthusiasts know, as well as exquisite vehicle sets like the Mini Cooper, Ford Mustang, and Fiat 500. However, due to sales strategy considerations, LEGO decided to stop printing the Creator Expert logo on product packaging starting in 2020. Instead, they adopted a design featuring a dark background and LEGO brick texture as the main theme, creating more textured, mature-looking box art. Despite this, the Creator Expert LOGO could still be seen on the official website pages for these LEGO sets.
▼ The packaging for "10265 Ford Mustang" and "10271 Fiat 500" still features the Creator Expert logo in the upper right corner.
▼ "10298 Vespa 125," also a Creator Expert set, has already switched to the new style of box art.
▼ However, the LEGO official website still categorizes it under Creator Expert.
In other words, many 18+ sets in recent years, branded "Adults Welcome" and belonging to the Creator series but not immediately identifiable as such, will appear under the LEGO ICONS category in the future! For toy enthusiasts who search for LEGO sets online, this might offer some help with categorization, though there shouldn't be a significant difference in the consumer experience. In recent years, LEGO has indeed launched more and more appealing adult-oriented products, such as the Botanical Collection, which has drawn many who weren't previously LEGO fans into collecting. We hope to see even more awesome sets in the LEGO ICONS series in the future!