The Brick Drop · Coherent design · v1.2 blueprint

One app, one grade, made for you

Built entirely from your teardown — your keeps, your cuts, and our locked calls. This is the reset: not another layer bolted on, but the whole thing re-centered on the grade and the person reading it. v1.2 folds in the gap-analysis calls — the living grade, receipts, PWA, buy-timing and the rest.

The north star (your words)

An easy-to-use app that shows how a LEGO set you're into rates, what makes it good for you, and a full breakdown of what gives it its value and worth — catered to you and your interests.

01The shape of the app

The grade is the center of gravity — not the timeline. The app opens and works instantly, no gate. Personalization is a side-door you take only if you want it. The old discovery maze is gone.

The path everyone gets — zero setup required:
Open appno gate
→
Homeworks instantly
→
Resultthe Verdict Card
→
Sharedownload & post
·
Browsetimeline, demoted
Optional, any time — the upgrade a fan opts into:
✨ Make it yoursa soft nudge
→
Onboarding~30 sec · why you buy
→
Grades tuned to youHome becomes "For You"
And it lives as a PWA

One web app: installable like a native app for fans, but every set also has a public web result page — so a shared card opens instantly in the browser with no install. Web reach, app feel, one codebase.

02Nobody's forced to set up

Your point, built in: a casual user gets full value with zero setup. The app just works. Personalization is something you grow into — three levels, and you can happily stop at any one.

Level 0 · Casual
Just use it

A general Drop Score — how a set rates for most people — and a home of notable, top-rated 2026 drops. Search anything, get a grade. No account, no questions, no flow.

Level 1 · Ad-hoc
One-tap tune

On any result, nudge "what matters to you" and that one set re-grades for you. Nothing saved, no commitment — personalization without a profile.

Level 2 · Make it yours
Opt in, any time

Like your tweaks? "Save these as my defaults," or run the 30-second onboarding. Now Home becomes "For You" and grades tune everywhere. Always a soft nudge, never a wall.

The Brick Drop
🔍 Search any LEGO set
✨ Make it yours — grades tuned to you✕
Set up in 30s ›
Notable 2026 drops
AMillennium Falcon
B+Rivendell
A-Botanical
BSpeeder
◆ HomeBrowseProfile
Level 0 · casual home (no setup)Search + general "notable drops" with everyone's grade. The "make it yours" nudge is soft and dismissible — dismiss it and it's gone (it still lives in Profile).
The Brick Drop
🔍 Search any LEGO set
Rated for you
A-Rivendell
B+Galaxy Explorer
AAT-AT
B-Orchid
· browse all 2026 drops ›
◆ For YouBrowseProfile
Level 2 · same home, once you opt inThe nudge is gone; "notable drops" becomes "rated for you"; the nav reads For You. Same screen — only the contents and one label change.
The Brick Drop
Optional setup · ~30 sec
I buy LEGO to…
DisplayPlayCollectInvest
Themes I love
Star WarsIconsBotanicalsTechnic
Budget comfort
$$$$$$
Save →
Skip for now
The onboarding — only if invitedReached from the nudge or Profile, never sprung on a first-timer. Has a "Skip for now," and can be redone/edited any time.
Why this works

The casual and personalized homes are the same screen — only the contents and one label change. There's no second app to build, and a user crosses casual → personalized without ever leaving where they are.

03The result — the Verdict Card, upgraded

Where both engines meet. One headline grade (The Drop Score), and the money math folds in as the "Is the price fair?" read. It replaces the "giant grade letter" idea — same moment, done once. A casual user sees the general grade; the same card quietly offers to make it theirs.

● The Brick Drop Score general
A-
for you · B+ overall ▸
Great for a
display collector
Rivendell
10316 · Icons
● Based on 18 reviews · solid
"A breathtaking centerpiece — the LOTR build of the decade. Just bring your wallet."
▸💰 Is the price fair?B+
▸🤩 Will you love it?A
▸📈 Holds its value?A-
tap any read → the real review quotes
LEGOAmazonMore ▾
⏰ Retiring soon · $120 off now
→ Scores higher for you: AT-AT (A) ›
What matters to you · tap to tune
DisplayPlay
ValueJoy
+ minifigs · space — when they matter for this set
↓ Share card

What's on it, and why

  • Image-forward — the set photo fills the top of the card behind the verdict, with the same gradient overlay as the share card. No tiny thumbnail — the result is the card it makes.
  • The Drop Score leads, colored from the set's photo, over the image. When your profile changes it, it shows "A− for you · B+ overall" — tap for the reason. Casual users just see the general grade.
  • Confidence is always shown — "Based on 18 reviews · solid," or "Early read · 2 reviews" when it's thin. Never a bare letter.
  • The Hot Take replaces the unique fact — the italic line is now the Brick Drop Hot Take, per your call.
  • Three reads, with receipts — "Is the price fair?" is the True Value engine inside the card; tapping any read reveals the real review quotes behind it.
  • Buy row = many retailers, plus a buy-timing line ("retiring soon · $120 off") and one "scores higher for you" alternative — a verdict that points somewhere.
  • Per-set tweak = Level 1 personalization — nudge "what matters to you" (with deeper minifigs · space dials when they matter), no account; then "save as my defaults."
  • Share — the downloadable card, via the bottom-sheet you kept. Every result also has a public web URL — the page a shared card opens.
This answers your open question

The "giant grade letter + value bar" and the Verdict Card were the same thing twice — so there's one result screen, and it's this. The value bar becomes the "Is the price fair?" read.

Before a set is released · the living grade

Most of the timeline is unreleased, so there are no reviews yet. There, the card leads with True Value (the math works pre-launch) plus a clearly-labeled predicted Drop Score, all under an "Early read — sharpens as reviews land." The real Drop Score takes over the headline once reviews exist. The app is never most confident when it knows the least.

04The timeline — demoted, and made honest

You said it got noisy and inaccurate and shouldn't be the front door. So it becomes Browse: a quiet, accurate list behind the second tab — and every grade on it comes straight from the same engine as the result screen, so a card can never disagree with its own verdict again.

The accuracy rule

One source of truth: the Drop Score engine grades a set once. The Result, the Home cards, the Share card, and the Browse tiles all read that same grade. No second code path, no drift — the bug that split the timeline and calculator is designed out.

05How your Drop Score work becomes the engine

The app is the face; the grade behind it is the Drop Score project you've been building — now wired in as the brain, with True Value as a layer inside it.

The Drop Score

Your holistic, review-based engine — the judges, the corpus, sentiment, the reads. It produces the headline grade: a general version for everyone, re-weighted against a profile (or a per-set tweak) when one exists.

→ headline grade · the 3 reads · the Hot Take

True Value (a layer)

The price-vs-parts math you love, kept intact — but surfaced as the "Is the price fair?" read inside the breakdown rather than its own screen. Objective money math, alongside the personal grade.

→ the "price fair?" read · the $-of-brick line

06What that means for the pieces

Your teardown, resolved into the build:

Keep & carry

  • Near-black + red/yellow base (Drop Score design system)
  • Grade as the headline
  • Verdict Card + Hot Take
  • 4:5 share card + gradient + image-color grade
  • Crop Curator + per-set crops
  • Share-card-DNA tiles
  • Plain-English everywhere
  • Methodology page
  • Bottom-sheet pattern
  • True Value (as a layer)

Defer / rethink

  • Alerts (price-drop · retiring · new-in-themes) — next pillar, revives Saved
  • Watchlist + Saved — returns with alerts
  • Price history — data for the buy-timing line
  • Bottom tabs — trimmed to 3 (Home · Browse · Profile)
  • Buy row — expand to multi-retailer
  • Status chips — only in Browse, if at all
  • Drop Hero — replaced by the Home
  • Footer/web-chrome — app feel, not website

Cut

  • Timeline as the homescreen
  • Forced onboarding (now optional)
  • Calendar countdown hero
  • Editorial discovery lanes
  • 4-row sticky header
  • Month-jump rail
  • "Is it worth it?" framing
  • Separate "giant letter" screen

Your move

This blueprint now matches the written spec — v1.2 folds in every gap-analysis call (living grade, receipts, PWA, buy-timing, alerts pillar). If anything reads off, point at it; otherwise the blueprint and the spec move into planning together:

  1. Does the progressive personalization (casual works instantly → one-tap tune → optional profile) match what you meant?
  2. Does the four-screen shape (Home → Result → Share, Browse demoted, onboarding optional) feel right?
  3. Is the Result screen carrying the right things — general vs personal grade, Hot Take, the 3 reads with True Value as "price fair?", multi-retailer, per-set tweak?
  4. Anything in Keep / Defer / Cut you'd move?

Point at anything and I'll adjust. Once it's right, I'll write the spec to docs/superpowers/specs/ and we plan the build.

— The Brick Drop · coherent design v1.2 · 2026-07-04