Short answer
More colours, less vivid ones, and since 2007 less grey. Sets released in 2025 use 75 named colours against 10 in 1975. Counting parts rather than colours, strongly coloured parts fell from 64.3% to 16.6%, while near-neutral parts peaked at 65.3% in 2007 and are 48.8% now. The growth is in between: browns, tans, dark blue and green. These are Colourwise's calculations from an open catalogue's nominal colour values, not measurements of bricks or of sales.
Rebrickable publishes its catalogue of official LEGO sets as daily files that may be used for any purpose with acknowledgement. Colourwise took the files of 6 October 2026, kept the first inventory of each set, dropped spare parts, and summed the quantity of each colour across all sets dated to a year. Fourteen years are held: every fifth from 1970, plus 2004 and 2007. Each named colour carries one sRGB value chosen by the catalogue's maintainers to look right on a screen. Chroma is calculated from that value in CIELAB. Transparent colours, 3.1% of parts in 2025, are left out of chroma figures because a clear part has no single colour.
Counted as distinct colours appearing in a year's sets, the palette runs 10 (1975), 21 (1990), 70 (2000), 112 (2004), 64 (2007), 65 (2015) and 75 (2025). That matches the shape an earlier newspaper analysis of the same catalogue reported: fast growth to a peak in 2004, a sharp cut, and slow regrowth. Weighting every colour equally, the palette's mean chroma has hardly moved since 1980, staying between 35.1 and 41.2: the colours added were spread across the range, pale and deep, dull and bright.
Weighting by parts tells a different story, because a set uses hundreds of black, grey and white pieces for every piece in a rare colour. In 1975 the mean chroma of an opaque part was 50.9 and the median part had a chroma of 64.9, a saturated primary. By 2000 the mean was 28.1, and in every sampled year from 1980 the median part has had a chroma under 14: a black, a grey or a dull tan. Vivid parts, at or above a chroma of 60, fell from 64.3% in 1975 to 26.2% in 2000 and 16.6% in 2025. Near-neutral parts, below a chroma of 12, were 34.9% in 1975, peaked at 65.3% in 2007, after the palette was cut, and have fallen to 48.8%.
Both ends shrinking means the middle grew. Parts with a chroma between 12 and 60 were 0.8% of the opaque total in 1975, 11.1% in 2007 and 34.6% in 2025. In the catalogue's names the largest of them in 2025 sets are reddish brown, tan, dark tan, green and dark blue. A neutral share alone would call recent sets more colourful than those of 2007; a vividness measure alone would call them the least colourful in the series. Neither is wrong. The mix has moved from primaries and greys towards browns, tans and darker hues, which a single 'colourfulness' figure cannot express.
The values are nominal. One sRGB triplet per colour, assigned by volunteers, stands in for plastics that vary by batch and age, so the thresholds sort a catalogue, not physical bricks, and a colour within a unit or two of a line could fall either side. An inventory counts a part once per set however many copies of the set were sold, so a best-seller and a rarity weigh the same. Early years rest on a few dozen sets. And it is one company's range. It is evidence about what one maker designed, and a worked example of measurement; it is not evidence about toys in general.
| Year | Sets | Colours in use | Near-neutral parts, C* < 12 (%) | Mid-chroma parts, 12–60 (%) | Vivid parts, C* ≥ 60 (%) | Mean chroma, by part | Median chroma, by part | Mean chroma, by colour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | 44 | 11 (10 opaque) | 46.4 | 4.1 | 49.6 | 42.0 | 44.7 | 29.5 |
| 1975 | 41 | 10 (9 opaque) | 34.9 | 0.8 | 64.3 | 50.9 | 64.9 | 33.2 |
| 1980 | 110 | 17 (12 opaque) | 55.3 | 2.0 | 42.7 | 36.0 | 8.5 | 38.7 |
| 1985 | 177 | 22 (16 opaque) | 50.9 | 2.8 | 46.3 | 38.7 | 10.6 | 41.2 |
| 1990 | 120 | 21 (14 opaque) | 58.9 | 2.2 | 38.9 | 33.1 | 8.5 | 39.1 |
| 1995 | 195 | 32 (24 opaque) | 57.3 | 4.2 | 38.5 | 33.2 | 8.5 | 35.5 |
| 2000 | 411 | 70 (54 opaque) | 54.7 | 19.1 | 26.2 | 28.1 | 10.6 | 37.7 |
| 2004 | 468 | 112 (89 opaque) | 54.0 | 17.6 | 28.4 | 30.2 | 8.5 | 37.9 |
| 2005 | 418 | 107 (79 opaque) | 56.5 | 17.6 | 26.0 | 28.6 | 8.5 | 37.0 |
| 2007 | 485 | 64 (48 opaque) | 65.3 | 11.1 | 23.6 | 25.1 | 8.5 | 36.3 |
| 2010 | 545 | 61 (45 opaque) | 56.8 | 19.2 | 24.0 | 27.2 | 8.5 | 35.1 |
| 2015 | 1,044 | 65 (47 opaque) | 61.2 | 21.9 | 16.8 | 22.9 | 8.5 | 35.8 |
| 2020 | 1,135 | 72 (49 opaque) | 51.1 | 30.9 | 18.0 | 25.8 | 8.5 | 36.4 |
| 2025 | 1,434 | 75 (55 opaque) | 48.8 | 34.6 | 16.6 | 25.8 | 13.8 | 37.7 |
Each statement is labelled by kind — established fact, a standard’s requirement, observed market data, a convention, or Colourwise’s own interpretation or analysis — with the strength of the evidence behind it.
Colourwise analysisModerate evidence
Weighted by part count, the share of opaque parts with a nominal CIELAB chroma of 60 or more in LEGO sets falls from 64.3% for sets released in 1975 to 16.6% for sets released in 2025.
Based on: Colourwise's aggregation of Rebrickable's inventory files of 6 October 2026: part quantities by colour per release year, each colour's nominal sRGB value converted to CIELAB (D65) chroma, transparent and placeholder colours excluded.
Caveat: Nominal catalogue colour values, not measurements; parts designed into sets, not sets sold; 41 sets in the 1975 sample.
Source: LEGO Catalog Database Download (colors, sets, inventories and inventory parts)
Colourwise analysisModerate evidence
The share of opaque parts with a nominal chroma under 12 peaks at 65.3% for 2007 sets and is 48.8% for 2025 sets.
Based on: Same aggregation as the vivid-share figure, with the near-neutral threshold of 12 in CIELAB chroma; the peak is the highest of the sampled years from 2000.
Caveat: Only fourteen years are sampled, so the true peak year may be an unsampled neighbour; the threshold is Colourwise's convention.
Source: LEGO Catalog Database Download (colors, sets, inventories and inventory parts)
FactModerate evidence
Rebrickable states that its catalogue download files may be used for any purpose, including commercial use, provided Rebrickable is acknowledged as the source of the data.
Caveat: Terms as read from an archived copy of the download page dated 9 September 2026.
Source: LEGO Catalog Database Download (colors, sets, inventories and inventory parts)
FactModerate evidence
An independent newspaper analysis of the same catalogue reported more than 110 colours in use at a 2004 peak and about 60 by 2007, the pattern Colourwise's own count reproduces.
Caveat: Agreement between two analyses of one catalogue confirms the arithmetic, not the catalogue.
Reviewed 6 October 2026. Colourwise summarises its sources in its own words and does not reproduce standards text or proprietary colour data. Spotted an error? Tell us.