Jens Nygaard Knudsen, designer of the LEGO minifigure

He died February 19 at 78. 

He joined LEGO in 1968 at age 26 and ultimately became the company's chief designer.

From the Washington Post:

Over the decades, the company honed modern techniques of manufacturing plastic toys, patenting its signature stud-and-tube locking system for its toy building bricks in 1958.

But until Mr. Knudsen's innovations in the 1970s, Lego lacked a human or even humanoid element to enliven its playscapes.

"There was something missing from the houses, cars, planes, and fantasy world these children spent hours playing with," Sarah Herman wrote in her book "A Million Little Bricks: The Unofficial Illustrated History of the LEGO Phenomenon." Mr. Knudsen's minifigures, she wrote, went "on to define and drive" the Lego system "more than any other part since the launch of the new Lego brick in 1958."

Introduced in 1978, the blocky minifigure had movable arms and legs, C-shaped hands to grip other Lego elements, and basic if sometimes inscrutable facial features.

With its head made from yellow plastic, the minifigure had "no obvious ethnicity," according to the company's description. (Future characters featured natural skin tones.)

Minifigures were people in the most rudimentary form, allowing seemingly infinite possibilities for children to imagine the lives behind them.

Early minifigures included a police officer, a firefighter, a doctor, a gas station attendant, a knight, and an astronaut.

The line proved so popular that it grew over the years to include 8,000 characters, among them figures from the Star Wars and Harry Potter franchises.