Coming in at 429 pieces, the new Mystery Puzzle #30 is a uniquely challenging and delicately beautiful piece of art. I was fortunate enough to be one of the designers to work on this puzzle and I must say it is one of my favorite designs I have gotten to work on so far in my time at Artifact Puzzles.
When Maya came to me with this project, she gave me the ever terrifying prompt of “go crazy with this one”. She gave me a puzzle file that was started by one of our other designers, David Figueiras, and told me I had as much time as I needed to make it beautiful.
Used to working with a few more guidelines than an open book, my mind raced with possibilities of where I could take the beautiful swirling floral patterns that already lived in David’s file.
Here's a little crop of what the puzzle design looks like on-screen, with a sneak peek of the image layered into the background so you get the effect (the actual image is full contrast):
When it comes to designing puzzles, as with most design work, it boils down to a balance between creativity and practicality. When the mind runs towards its wildest dreams, design holds the constraints that root them to reality.
The more creative freedom you take, the greater the challenge to make a functional puzzle!
Initial iterations had a few drop-outs along the edge, and each iteration we got more exuberant with drop-outs (those are parts of the puzzle left-out, to showcase the pieces).
Here's a little peek at what the drop-outs for this one look like on-screen, we mark them with an X:
Once we settled into a design language for Mystery #30, it did not take long in the testing process for the challenges to rear their ugly head: the unique shapes tended towards delicate and easily breakable pieces, beautiful, but untenable! Fixes were required.
After countless hours of test cuts and meticulous revisions, my efforts paid off with a challenging and unique puzzle that's become one of Maya's new favs.
Without giving the mystery away, this puzzle is flowery yet sturdy, dancing on the edge between unfettered art and functional form where all good design should live.
It was a joy to work on and I hope it is as fun and challenging to solve as it was to create!
Here's the link if you want to see the results: Mystery Puzzle #30
~Beckett Pintair