The Hubelino Story

How it all got started

What a Sunday! The house was only half-built, the building blocks were all gone and the children were unhappy. The initiator of Hubelino was determined to put things right. As a father, he was fed up of constantly having to buy more and more building blocks. He also knew that Lego's patent had run out. But he didn't just want to copy Duplo blocks, he wanted to add something, connect playing with some real content. He wanted to incorporate learning into the building blocks.

How building blocks became learning blocks

The concept was developed in collaboration with educationalists; an injection moulding manufacturer was also enthusiastic to join in, and soon 30,000 building blocks had been produced and stored in the Initiators' garage. A few Sundays later, the children and their friends built a pyramid whose apex reached the ceiling - the first real-world test had proved a success. Step two, printing, soon followed. The requirements: it should be safe for children and suitable for small production runs. The printing process that was settled upon met the criteria and was a world first - digital printing with food-safe colouring. And so production began. Incidentally, it takes place entirely in Germany.