LEGO reclaims stunning box art with One Piece sets

The LEGO Group has debuted some truly stunning box art in the new LEGO One Piece theme, capturing the heart of the franchise.

The LEGO Group has long since experimented with unique box art and packaging ideas, but some sets of late have leaned towards sleek and minimalistic, rather than colourful and eye-catching. In themes like LEGO Icons and even Ideas, the box art is kept largely black, with the focus being on a bright image of the set itself.

While these boxes undoubtedly look good, when you're presented with a whole wall of them in a LEGO Store, for example, it can look quite same-y. Even for LEGO themes like LEGO Marvel and Star Wars, where the box art does include some sort of landscape or setting for the model rather than a single colour, the artwork is washed out and certainly isn't as eye-catching as some we've had in the past.

However, with the reveal of the LEGO One Piece sets, particularly the five non-BrickHeadz ones, the LEGO Group has returned to some truly stunning box art. Each set visits a different location or vehicle from the show, and the artwork illustrates that perfectly, with an impressive amount of detail in each one to really set the scene.

The colours are different for each one, but unified by a largely pastel colour scheme, as well as the suitably pirate-themed banner with the One Piece logo on the top left. In some cases, as with 75638 Battle at Arlong Park, the minifigures are integrated into the artwork, with Chu and Usopp up on a hill with one of the set's side builds. Similarly, the boat and accessories of 75636 Windmill Village Hut come together seamlessly, thanks to the detailed illustrations on the box.

Even for the more stripped pack box art in 75637 Buggy the Clown's Circus Tent and 75639 The Going Merry Pirate Ship, where there's less detail and more landscapes, the colour schemes are artfully picked to pick out the best parts of the set. Where the former is made up of brightly coloured elements, a darker colour scheme has been chosen, helping showcase the set best. For the latter, a ship made up of neutral colours, the pastel sunset sky and waves is not only a fitting setting, but also adds some vibrant flair to what could otherwise be a drab set.

The vibrancy of those four sets does make 75640 The Baratie Floating Restaurant look all the more boring in terms of box art, for want of a better word. The all-black 18+ branding does help it stand out as the biggest and most complex build of them all, but we also can't help but think wistfully of what artwork we could have had to help bring the eatery to life.