Deviant Jigsaw Puzzle Project

I'm not sure who'll be interested in this, but I thought it was neat. I can't even really figure out who's responsible for it all, but the idea is as follows...A surrealist artist had the idea of creating a perpetual jigsaw puzzle. Each piece would be illustrated by a different artist, with the stipulation that it must blend into the surrounding pieces.

So, a call went out to artists to create the pieces of this puzzle. I get the idea that the response must have been less than overwhelming, but still the end result and the individual pieces are worth a look. It's a bizarre quilt of interlocking puzzle pieces. I wish it had more of them.

If you're adventurous, check out The Jigsaw Puzzle Project at Deviant Art.com

Great Jigsaw Puzzle Songs

Years ago, I was charged with developing a playlist of songs that were related to jigsaw puzzles. The idea was that we wanted to have our music-on-hold all relate to puzzles. Well, the project was too hard at the time, but I did develop a neat list of songs that have jigsaw puzzles, pieces,
or other vague puzzle references in them. Of course, I lost that list, so what follows is basically from memory. So, look through your own collections and see if you have any of these and of course feel free to add your own.

• Howard Jones - No one is to Blame - "...last piece of the puzzle but you just can't make it fit."
• Jim Croce - Bad Bad Leroy Brown - "Leroy looked like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone"
• Faith No More - Falling to pieces - " And the pieces of my puzzle keep crumblin' away But I know, there's a picture beneath"
• Patsy Cline - I Fall to Pieces
• The Chelmars - Jigsaw Puzzle
  
• Peter and Gordon - I go to Pieces
• Dave Clark Five - Bits and Pieces
• Rolling Stones - Jigsaw Puzzle
• Fleetwood Mac - Jigsaw Puzzle Blues
• Action Action - Four Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

Any great jigsaw puzzle deserves a great theme song, right?

Online Jigsaw Puzzles

Well, I'm not ready to report on Toy Fair. But, here's a little blurb about online jigsaw puzzles.

There's a certain magic about a jigsaw puzzle. It's something about turning the pieces over and over in your hand, looking for matching patterns, the edge pieces, and the snap when you put it in the right spot.

So why do people like online jigsaw puzzles? I'm not criticizing...well, I actually am, sort of. Because I don't get it. I've done a couple and luckily they had mercifully few pieces. They don't have that snap (or maybe I just had my computer's volume off). They don't have that magic. You don't have to rotate them, turn them over to the front...nothing. Why not just have the computer solve it for you, too?! In fact, they'll do that as well.

Still, as I say all this, I notice that there are groups on Yahoo and Google devoted just to these very activities. There are web sites featuring online puzzles of varying sophistication. You can make your own jigsaws with digital pictures of your kids or pets or the even cuter kids or pets of others. They'll have a puzzle of the day, let you email puzzles to friends, there's a Facebook application, on and on. I mean, I guess people really like them. National Geographic has a pretty good one on their website. It's pretty cool and the pictures are great of course. Would I go back again and again? Well, no probably not.

I shouldn't complain - I suppose that anything raising awareness and interest in jigsaw puzzles is a good thing, especially for me. I wonder though if technology has gone too far. I mean, what's next, replacing printed newsletters with pithy online journals written by self-declared experts? Let's hope not.

Making Puzzles Isn't as Easy as You Might Think

I've gotten a bit unfocused in my last few posts. I thought I'd return to the main topic of this blog for at least a while. Many people have asked me how jigsaw puzzles are made and it strikes me that I've been keeping them in suspense. Well, no more.

A jigsaw puzzle, as produced today, is basically a piece of cardboard cut up into pieces. The cardboard is as much as an eighth of an inch thick (usually less) and its cut by a bunch of knives set into a piece of plywood. These knives are not so different from your kitchen knives that are probably dust-covered and sunk into a block of wood on your counter. However, your Wusthof- Henckels are probably not bent into the shape of puzzle pieces. If they are, you probably make very interesting sandwiches.

Anyway, these knives cut the cardboard into shapes that someone like me designs. It's not exactly like you'd think. Firstly, when you slice a tomato for instance, you probably move your knife in a back and forth motion. When a knife cuts a puzzle, there is no such movement. It just forces its way into the cardboard until its cuts all the way through. Try this with a tomato...really...though if you cut your hand off, I don't even know you, okay?

Unless your knife is sharper than I think it is, the tomato will first wonder what is happening to it. It will do the tomato equivalent of scratching its head. Then it will protest your method. It will try to make itself look bigger in the hopes that you'll get scared away. It will do this by bulging on either side of your knife blade. It will continue this charade until you either run away in search of easier prey or until, in a uniquely tomatoish display, it bursts and bits of gel covered seeds and red tomato flesh spray all over your kitchen. When you're done with this little experiment you may or may not have anything useful as a vegetable left. Your knife may be embedded a half inch deep in your cutting board. However, you will have demonstrated that, often, slicing is much preferred over pressing. If you're not convinced, try cutting a slice from a nice loaf of Italian bread, or a rump roast. Now, try a piece of puzzle board.

The puzzle board will laugh at you and your cutlery. Luckily puzzles aren't cut by kitchen knives. Basically, puzzles are cut using the same method used to cut shaped cookies...this would be a cookie cutter, for those of you who don't spend a lot of time in the kitchen. The big difference is that cookies are made from soft cookie dough and puzzles are made from hard cardboard. If the puzzle board is finished laughing at your knives, try a cookie cutter on it. The ensuing laughter may be deafening.

Well, when the puzzle board is no longer chortling over your efforts, try showing it a puzzle press. A hush will likely fall over the room. Ha! not so funny now, is it, Mr. Cardboard? Why has everything gotten so serious? I'll tell you why. Instead of dealing with some culinary buffoon who can barely chop salad fixins, we're now looking at a 1000 ton hydraulic marvel that could squash you flat without even realizing you were there.

Do you remember in the movie "The Terminator," at the very end, when the Governor of California exposed his sparklingly relentless endoskeleton in a final fit of...relentlessness, and chased Sarah Connor through a hydraulic press? Well, that's the same animal that cuts jigsaw puzzles into bits. And, let me tell you, if it can squish a gleaming cyborg from the future, it can do a wicked number on a piece of cardboard.

If you're losing your nerve, remember what a fool the tomato made of you. A puzzle in a box seems so innocent, so homespun, so safe. Well, your typical 1000 piece puzzle has gone through a press that can press 1000 tons. No one knows what that means, I know, so I googled "how much does a car weigh" to give some frame of reference. The first answer was roughly 3000 pounds for a Pontiac Vibe and while I don't know anyone with a Vibe, let's say a car weighs 3000 pounds or a ton and a half. So, a 1000 ton press can exert enough pressure to lift 667 (I rounded) cars. That's about ALL the cars in a typical parking lot, plus a bunch more.

So, the press presses (they don't call it a 'press' for nothing) the knives through the puzzle board. I'm not exaggerating about the forces involved either. A 500 ton press can't make a 1000 piece puzzle (at least not in one shot). The rest of the processes involved aren't too complicated. There's a laminator that sticks the picture on the board before the puzzle gets cut and a breaker that breaks up the pieces to go in the box. The laminator is a bit like an egg-wash and the breaker is essentially a glorified eggbeater, if you're comfy with the kitchen metaphors.

Anyway, its kind of an amazing process and one that's more brutal than most people think, but as Sarah Connor would say..."You're terminated, jigsaw puzzle." That's what happens when the puzzles become self-aware. In future columns, I'll tell you what happens when the puzzles get out of line and try to exceed the tonnage of a press. It can get ugly, but we'll get through it together, okay?

Slush, Wind, Snow, and Toys

The American International Toy Fair starts on Sunday. I'll be heading to New York for a couple days to make contacts, drum up new business and meet with my foreign licensees. Most exhibitors are worn pretty thin by now. They've said "Have you seen our latest...whatever?" so many times now that the words more or less leave their mouths on their own. Once upon a time, this was the place to introduce new lines, meet with big buyers and little buyers and get a jump on next year in foreign markets.

Much of that is gone. For many years, the February Toy Fair in New York meant several things, not the least of which being that you'd spend Valentine's Day freezing your butt off with the sexy people in the toy industry. It meant that you'd exhibit in an open booth at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, and if you had an established line, you'd also exhibit in some tiny showroom in the Toy Center on 5th Avenue or the connected building at 1107 Broadway. If you had a really established line, you might forgo the Javits space and only have your showroom at the Toy Center. After all, that's where the big buyers were anyway. Well, the Toy Center was sold off for condos, offices, or whatever, Toy Fair now starts after Valentine's Day and new lines have already been shown to major buyers for months.

Holding a trade fair in February seems idiotic anyway, but when the NY Toy Fair first started, the industry revolved around independent toy store sales and most of the new toys, games, crafts, and puzzles were made domesticaly. February was the time to show the new stuff and Manhattan was crawling with toy companies. A couple years ago I had to remind myself of this as 2 feet of snow meant that all of my appointments rescheduled...for some other year.

Today, the mass market and character licenses drive development and the mass market can't buy in February for Christmas sales. If they did, most of the companies who source their items in China couldn't supply them in time. They need at least 12 months and more like 18 to make this whole system work. That's why the mass market Toy Fair is in October, and in Dallas. Among the other Toy Fairs that precede NY Toy are The Hong Kong Toy Fair, the London and Birmingham Toy Fairs, and the big one, the Nuremburg Toy Fair in Germany.

So, why am I and a few thousand exhibitors, salespeople, inventors and buyers putting on our parkas and hiring Sherpas to lug our junk into frozen hotels, cabs, and ultimately, the Mount Everest that is the Javits Center? A couple reasons. For me, its close, just an hour flight, plus I can visit my sister while I'm in the area. For the vast majority of others who don't know my sister that well, NY Toy Fair is a visible, promoted symbol of Toy-dom. Few in the US media have any idea that 80 percent of the toys of Christmas 2008 have already been planogrammed and purchase orders written. Even if they knew, they'd still wait until at least February to tell anyone, because if they reported it any earlier, no one would care, much less remember. So, it's a good media event. Further, while the major toy companies depend more and more on sales to big box retailers, little guys just starting out can exhibit their new item at Javits and get exposure to tons of small buyers. These buyers include online toy stores, catalogs, mom and pops, and small chains. Of course, even if you've been around for a while, it'd be crazy to ignore these buyers or media exposure. Momentum also keeps people coming, especially those from overseas, who've already seen quite a bit at Nuremburg or Hong Kong.

I think it'll be a good show. Without the Toy Center showrooms to suck up exhibit dollars, I expect many companies will expand their presence at Javits. With the economy skidding along, I'd expect to see some creative low-tech for a refreshing change. Speaking of low tech, I'll report back on new jigsaw puzzles and anything that I feel like chatting about after the show. Who knows, maybe I'll even sell something. Wish me luck.

Why I'm a Puzzle Designer

An Inventor? That must be fun!

"I design jigsaw puzzles and games for a living." When I tell someone that, I know that the next thing I'm going to hear is "Wow! That must be fun!" It's as though I said "I ride roller coasters for a living." or "I get paid to watch cartoons." or "I use my fingers to project little shadow creatures on the wall and the pay is great!"

Before I launch into a protracted tongue in cheek rant on the life of an inventor, let me first say that by and large, it is fun, at least the inventing part. Unfortunately, you can invent the heck out of something and its not going to make you any money. It's really only when you sell your invention that a paycheck comes. If you license someone else to produce your invention, as I do, that paycheck will typically come every 3 months. Yep, you get paid 4 times a year. So, you license your idea to someone, who turns it into a product, they sell it for 3 months, and 30 days after that, your paycheck comes. Its different from paychecks you may be accustomed to receiving, and not just because you have to wait 4 months for it. For instance until you open it up, you'll have no idea how much it will be for. So, its a surprise. Usually though, no confetti pops out. Also, surprise and disappointment can often be synonyms. The words "panic, insomnia, anxiety" plus several choice expletives are also often appropriate synonyms. This is especially true when it dawns on you that the amount of money on the check must pay the bills that were waiting from the last 4 months (the ones in which you made no money) and any bills you might need to pay in the next 3 months (until you get your next surprise). So, if you're considering being an inventor, be sure to keep about seven months of cash in the bank at all times.

A few terms: The check you get is a royalty and is based on some negotiated percentage of the wholesale sales of your invention. The inventor is also known as the licensor. The companies to whom you license your invention are called licensees. If you question a licensee about the amount of money on your royalty check, you'll find that licensees have two different, unequally irritating responses. If you ask "My royalty check seems really high. Is there some mistake?", the licensee will always begin with "We sold..." as in "We sold a bunch of your product this quarter. You should thank us for our sales efforts on your behalf." On the other hand if you ask "My royalty check seems really crummy. Is there some mistake?" the response will begin with "It didn't sell..." as in "It didn't sell, despite the fact that we showed it to everybody and put a huge marketing effort behind it. You should thank us for our sales efforts on your behalf." The message is clear: "If your check is a big one, it's because of us, but if its a pittance, it's because your invention stinks." Still, a big check makes almost any answer less irritating.

I've already mentioned that royalty checks show up about 4 times a year because they're paid on the preceding calendar quarter. This works okay if you've invented a product that people use all year round...something like air, food, or toilet paper. It also works okay if your product is more mildly seasonal like long sleeve shirts and clam chowder. If your invention is really seasonal, like parkas, cranberry sauce, and anything purchased as a Christmas gift, it becomes clear that calendar quarters are roughly equivalent only in duration. Many of the items that I work on may as well be cranberry sauce. Sure, someone might occasionally pick up a dusty tin of gelid cranberries for Valentine's day but for the most part, don't look for strong sales until sometime in November. Similarly people don't buy tomato seedlings in January and while puzzles and games are a little better, most of them are purchased around the 3rd and 4th quarters of the year and given as Christmas gifts. In my business, royalty checks from the 1st and 2nd quarters are often referred to as "barely worth the trip to the mailbox".

So, to fill in any gaps that your seven months worth of cash don't cover, the typical game inventor must find other meaningful ways of occupying his time, despite the obvious distraction from the fun that this creates. These distractions take the form of activities like making prototypes, networking, finding new customers, writing blogs to promote your brands, and doing odd contractual work for absolutely anybody.

I guess the point is that while almost any occupation has its moments of fun, inspiration, and satisfaction, they are all still mostly filled with the drudgery of marketing, brand development, sales, managing cash flow, and collecting receivables. Still, despite all that, I have to admit that cooking up a new game or jigsaw puzzle really is fun. So, until someone hands me a check for making my shadow bunnies, I'll be having fun...working...on the next greatest, funniest, smartest, coolest thing you ever saw.

Elvis...King of the Jigsaw?

Elvis Presley was, is, and always will be the King of Rock and Roll. But he's also the King of Jigsaw Puzzles (sigh... I thought I was the king of the Jigsaw). I've personally worked on at least a half-dozen of them. For starters, there's my own All About Elvis puzzle. This cool puzzle features a central image surrounded by the story of Elvis' life. You can assemble it a 'chapter' at a time. The All About Series is available from BV Leisure in the UK and Blue Opal in Australia. They've also introduced Elvis editions of my 101 Puzzle and 20 Minute Puzzles.

Sure-Lox (The Canadian Group) produces a whole range of Elvis jigsaws. Their Legends series, panoramics and even three of my puzzles feature Elvis prominently in their line. There's an Elvis PuzziSphere, an Elvis Connect'Em, and an Elvis Quote-O-Graph.

Masterpieces has a series called Legends of the Silver Screen which features Elvis, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and others in cool illustrations. They also have a Puzzles in Motion (lenticular) series with an Elvis edition. Through the years Elvis has been one of the best puzzle subjects ever. He's right up there with Mickey Mouse, the Simpsons, and...well...puppies, kittens, and Neuschwanstein Castle.

It's kind of amazing, but when an Elvis song comes on, it's pretty easy to understand.

Puzzles from the Past

I've been involved in loads of puzzle projects. Most of these are new kinds of puzzles, puzzles that add something to the genre of the jigsaw puzzle. When I think up a new puzzle concept and want to make sure that someone else hasn't had the same 'new' idea, the first place I go is Puzzle History. This site has been around for many years and has great information on puzzles of the world, vintage jigsaws, puzzles you might find at a garage sale and maybe even a puzzle or two lurking in your own closet.

It features pages and pages of Q&A, links to other puzzle sites and manufacturers, and dear to my heart, a huge section on TUCO puzzles. If you're interested in puzzles, it's a must-visit site.

Economy Falling to Pieces?

Let's see, the DOW dropped nearly 400 points yesterday. The US dollar, which is used to value the companies in the DOW, is in the toilet and has been for some time. Everything seems to cost more, especially gas...and insurance, and food...everything except houses, which are practically free, available from your local bank. I'd say things aren't looking so great. What should we do in tough times like these? Buy Gold? Silver? Just lay low?

Nonsense! Go get a jigsaw puzzle! Few consumer items (or commodities) have the intrinsic value of a jigsaw puzzle. They're fun to do, mentally stimulating, they take a long time, and by and large they're cheap. They're the perfect activity for anyone sitting at the kitchen table reading the want ads. And it may be a long wait for the guy to come and repossess your X BOX or furniture. Why sit there are fret over it? Instead do a puzzle. Plus, since it's made from paper, you can always burn it if they turn off your heat. Heck you can even eat it if things get really desperate!

Seriously though, jigsaw puzzles provide lots of bang for the buck. Historically, they've sold really well when the economy slows. TUCO puzzles, one of the greatest of American puzzle brands, in fact started in 1932 when The Upson COmpany was struggling to find buyers of its wallboard products - that's why they were so thick. Other, lesser known brands started then as well. Basically, when people start tightening their belts, they look for closer-knit family activities, high value Christmas presents...you know, heavy things in bright, colorful boxes that don't cost very much. To many, this means jigsaw puzzles.

Anyway, hang in there. And, if you're really down on your luck, just remember that $10 worth of returnable beer cans not only helps the nation's recycling efforts, but it'll also buy a pretty nice 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Bon appetit!

NOTE: please do not eat your jigsaw puzzles, and if you do, please do not say that I told you to, because I was just kidding, okay?

Euro 2008!

When you think of soccer (ok, football) what do you think of...jigsaw puzzles of course! At the upcoming Toy Fair in Nuremberg, Germany, we'll be displaying the amazing PuzziSphere featuring the countries of the upcoming Euro 2008 soccer tournament.

I don't know a thing about soccer, though I know everything about soccer balls. Anyway, we made a really cool PuzziSphere that featured all the teams of World Cup 2006 and people loved it! This one is even better. Anyway, keep your eyes open for this amazing souvenir.

Making Don Scott Smile!

Hasbro has 3 of the most recognized brands in the jigsaw puzzle world; Puzz 3D, Milton Bradley, and the Big Ben puzzles series. So, its with great excitement that I announce our new license to Hasbro of a 3D jigsaw puzzle concept. Since it will not begin selling until 2009, I'm not able to mention many details here, but it's really big news for me. I've been working for nearly a year to solidify a working relationship with Hasbro and, whew, I'm tired!

I hope this will be the start of a long partnership and that, eventually, they'll buy my company for 77 million bucks just like they did with Cranium. Even if they don't, it's still big news. Stay tuned for details and let me know what you think about Hasbro jigsaw puzzles.

The Best Game Ever invented!

Many people know me as "that weird guy who makes jigsaw puzzles" - ok, not all that many. Anyway, I do. I invent jigsaw puzzles and sell the concepts to puzzle companies all over the world. However, I also invented a board game and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it is the Best Game ever invented...by me.

It's called Luck of the Draw and its a drawing game...WAIT! Before you run off saying "I can't draw", let me say that usually lack of drawing skill is a plus in this game. One reviewer described it as a sort of Pictionary meets Apples to Apples. Those are great games too, but since I didn't invent them, they were ineligible for this competition.

I'll briefly describe Luck of the Draw; all players have 45 seconds to draw a picture of something - a clock for instance. When time's up, everyone's drawing gets judged in wacky categories - Silliest, Tallest, Least Artistic, Most Likely to Hang on a Refrigerator, that kind of thing. It's fun and as I said, it's the winner of the Best Game ever invented...by me award.

Incidentally, this isn't the only award it's won. In fact it's won about 15 others:

• Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Award
• Better Homes and Gardens Kid-Tested for Fun
• Scholastic Parent & Child Top Pick of 2006
• Adding Wisdom Award
• Canadian Toy Testing Council "Children's Choice" Award
• Dr. Toy's Top 100 Children's Products
• Dr. Toy's 10 Best Games of The Year
• Canadian Toy Testing Council *** (Highest Rating)
• Parenting for High Potential Magazine Recommended
• National Parenting Center Seal of Approval
• iParenting Media Award
• Major Fun Senior Award
• Major Fun Party Game Award
• Creative Child Magazine Game of the Year
• FamilyFun Magazine "Our Favorite Things"
• About.com's top 10 Games of 2007

So, add these to the list...and for heaven's sake, go out and get one! What good are awards if nobody buys it anyway?!?!! Try Barnes and Noble or check out the Gamewright web page and if you like it, log on to Board Game Geek and give it a rating...and let me know what you think too!

What makes a great puzzle?

Jigsaw Puzzles are as unique and different as the people who put them together. What makes someone choose one puzzle over another? In traditional scenic jigsaw puzzles, the obvious answer is "duh...it's the picture!"

Or is it? A lot goes into a jigsaw puzzle and each piece is a component of the jigsaw puzzle experience. For instance, the board that a puzzle is made from greatly affects how well the puzzle gets cut, stays together, and looks. For years "European Green Board" was considered the Cadillac of puzzle boards, these days many premium puzzles are made from Blue Board while the overwhelming majority of puzzles are still made from brown or gray chip board.

Some puzzles are thicker than others, some have textured paper, some have vibrant printing techniques. Some puzzles are waxed before being cut, some have more dust in the bag than others...some don't even have a bag! Some puzzles have unique shapes or large pieces.

One of the recent developments in scenic jigsaw puzzles is the inclusion of a poster in the box as an aid in assembly. Years ago, this wasn't necessary because the boxes were large enough that you could see the picture on the front. Today, most puzzles that are sold in mass market retailers (Target, Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, Kmart, etc) must be in the same sized box, typically 8"x8"x3". This makes it pretty hard for the typical puzzle lover to choose a certain brand of jigsaw puzzle...since they all look pretty much alike. Plus, it makes the size of the picture on the front really, really small (Look for an entry on this sometime soon as its a terrible thing for the consumer AND puzzle companies.)

In some countries, especially Japan, the jigsaw puzzle is held to the highest standard. It will be on premium board, it will feature bright beautiful imagery and when its completed, it will be framed and displayed. I'm told that the Japanese consider it a piece of wall art and not so much of an activity.

For me, though I design jigsaw puzzles for a living, I don't actually put together very many. While I love a well made puzzle, I'm generally pretty forgiving. I put together about seventy five percent of it then run out of time or interest. I love the feeling in my brain when I match the patterns in the picture, but I'm not driven to complete the whole thing. I notice small defects and uniquely shaped pieces, both with equal interest.

I guess my point is just that puzzles are much more than just pretty pictures. What do you think?