When Lego first burst on to the toy scene, its bricks came in a very limited selection of colors; now, there’s an overwhelming range of choice. This chart shows how the available palette has changed over the years.

How the Lego Color Palette Has Changed Over the Last 40 Years

Just some fun graphs on how the palette has changed/increased through the years.

There is an overwhelming variety of colors for sure, but as whole, it looks like the color charts have faded to grey/gray and black.  I guess there are many more realistic sets than 30 years ago.

There is an overwhelming variety of colors for sure, but as whole, it looks like the color charts have faded to grey/gray and black.  I guess there are many more realistic sets than 30 years ago.

No, just to many Star Destroyers, Millennium Falcons, and other Star Wars sets.  

 

This past decade LEGO has been wiser in their color choices for the builds they release. Also the designs have been more realistic/faithful of the source vehicle or location to be recognizable from a glance. So many Town cars from back in the day looked like a box on a wheels making that "Police" sticker necessary to tell it was a patrol car. Today City has curved hoods, various mudguards, and an assortment of wheels with tires. Sounds funny to say but now a garbage truck set looks like an actual real-life garbage truck. Not only in the general shaping but the colors making up the 'paintjob' too.

A good example of better choice in colors and designs despite the fatigue for being around long as it has is LEGO Star Wars. The theme's first releases in 1999-2000 were very blocky, bulky, and quite a few large plates stuck together using less than flattering (and sometimes odd) colors. To be fair a handful of the spacecraft they tackled in those early years such as the X-Wing, A-Wing, TIE Fighter, or Bespin Cloud Car were okay then and still alright now to a degree but many were not good back in the day and certainly not by today's standards (the first AT-ST springs to mind). As an example comparing the 2013 A-Wing Starfighter to the 2000 edition between the colors used and shaping, the latest one wins without even trying. Shoot, it won that race standing still. The 2006 version is good though beating the 2000 one almost as easily being about as nice as the later design.

Strange thing I have noticed with the parts included in sets across the board today compared to yesteryear is the lack of black. I can remember practically every set I built growing up when things came time to sort, there almost always was a handful no matter how small of parts in black. Lately I haven't been building much as sorting with majority of the pieces from modern releases and a limited few of these were black. Overall it seems as though 'gray is the new black' with it (light & dark) being used in just about everything. Gray can be considered a neutral color and does make up a lot in everyday living followed by subjects in the area of medieval periods and space travel. Look at the amount of gray sprinkled across the current Pirates theme then the massive amounts in Star Wars. Even a bit of gray can be found through the colorful world of Friends hidden beneath the pastel tones.

One last agenda I wish to point out regarding the statement from the article of "When Lego first burst on to the toy scene, its bricks came in a very limited selection of colors" is similar to the "parts were simple back then" argument neither of which is true. An older article on New Elementary demonstrates when LEGO first started making bricks (the ones with slits on the sides), they used all sorts of weird colors. It took them a while before finally deciding upon a specific selection of hues. Once again today compared to yesterday, they (the LEGO Company) are being smarter and more conservative in their decisions.