People love the challenge of putting puzzles together, and more than 200 years after its creation, it’s a thriving industry. They were originally made to teach children geography in the 1760s. Today children still learn about geography with them. Also, with the large number of images available in puzzles, assembling puzzles has become a popular form of family entertainment. Therefore, puzzles are a good industry to license your art. But before you contact manufacturers, you need to know what kind of art they want and in what format.
Puzzles are made not only in the original horizontal format, but also in the form of ovals, circles, squares, vertically and in various free forms, depending on the images placed on the puzzles. Some are even three-dimensional shapes like balloons, animals, and buildings. And they don’t always have a simple 2D printed image, but are embellished with glitter, perfume or a 3D image. Puzzles are not only made from cardboard but also from wood, plastic and rubber. Note: Wooden puzzles are expensive to produce and are usually made one at a time. A lot of times, the licensing agreement that those manufacturers offer to artists is to put the artist’s art on their website. “If” the art is chosen by a client, the puzzle will be produced by the manufacturer and the artist will be paid a royalty or flat fee for the use.
Puzzle makers usually want art that
1. It Has Bright, Saturated Colors
2. Has a wow factor, such as cute kittens, children playing, beautiful scenery and flowers, or landmarks that elicit an emotional response from the consumer.
3. It doesn’t have a lot of white space. Too many blank spaces make it difficult to put together the puzzle. But if the painting is of a popular subject or was painted by a well-known artist, the amount of white space doesn’t seem to matter.
4. It is horizontal rectangular format. This is the most widely used format for puzzles. However, some manufacturers produce puzzles in many formats, as mentioned above. Therefore, art created in formats other than landscape can also be used for puzzles.
Some puzzle manufacturers produce puzzles for different specialized markets, such as universities, museums, children’s, teens, or mystery, while others cater to the general retail market. To find out what kind of images each manufacturer puts on their puzzles, you need to check their websites. And if their art submission guidelines are not listed on the site, you should contact them. Below is a list of puzzle makers who license art.
List of puzzle makers
buffalo games
ceaco
Elm puzzle (wooden puzzle)
Great American Puzzle Factory
heritage puzzle
Masterpieces puzzle
meissa and doug
ravensburger
spilsbury
Gazelle
Stave puzzles (wooden puzzles)
suns out
TOC games
White Mountain Puzzles Inc.
Feedback on this article is appreciated. Click on the comments just below the article title and enter your comments.
