Tag Archives: Puzzle art

Overwhelmed by Optical Illusions Underfoot

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A good optical illusion is a puzzle for the eyes, a visual treat that tricks you into seeing things that aren’t there. The most convincing optical illusions can even affect your sense of balance and make you question every footstep you take.

For instance, imagine walking into a room and seeing this:

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This is a rug called “Black Hole,” designed by Daniel Malik, and it’ll make you doubt the ground beneath your feet.

Don’t believe me? Check this out:

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And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to optical illusions that can leave you dizzy and spinning.

Austrian artist Peter Kogler specializes in making empty spaces look larger, more twisted, and vertigo-inducingly unsettled.

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Employing the walls, the floor, and the ceiling (along with any structural beams or other objects in the area), Kogler challenges your spacial awareness with lines and imagery that offset your natural depth perception.

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Astonishingly, the few recognizable items in this works — like a hanging lightbulb or even a fellow spectator — enhance the effect, making everything around those steady, relatable objects into an eye in the storm of chaotic imagery.

You no longer trust your ability to gauge height, distance, or even the angle of the room itself, even though you know in your heart that you’re walking on a flat surface.

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We’ve featured some clever floor designs in the past — including one in a school that was designed to keep kids from running in the halls — but nothing on the scale of Kogler’s work.

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It almost makes you nostalgic for the simple trickery of a circular area rug that looks like a tunnel to the center of the Earth, doesn’t it?

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The Fold and the Beautiful

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Anyone who has tried to fold up a road map knows that origami is a valuable skill to have. With the right folds, you can transform a few square sheets of paper into practically anything, from cranes that flap their wings and balloons that inflate to frogs that jump.

Origami is truly a puzzly art form with all sorts of unexpected uses in the modern day, providing a unique solution to confounding problems.

For instance, it’s rare to encounter a spacecraft that doesn’t incorporate folding solar panels, wings, or other collapsible/expandable parts that are based on classic origami folds.

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This mechanism, a solar array, is based on a Miura fold. The creation of Japanese astrophysicist Koryo Miura, the Miura fold allows a checkerboard-like field of interconnected parallelograms to unfold like a flower into a large, flat, circular surface.

This design is easily scaled up by adding more pieces to the network of folding peaks and valleys, allowing for different sized circular fields to be formed as needed. The array of motors around the Miura fold work like a Hoberman sphere, one of those expanding plastic toys that blooms outward with ease.

Not only does this allow them to save space for travel (and remain safe in transit), but it maximizes space when unfolded, allowing for greater surface area for energy absorption. The Mars landers, for instance, routinely incorporated folding mechanisms not only for solar panels, but for the landing platforms from which the landers emerged onto the surface.

That sort of space-efficient thinking has led to another unexpected solution, this time for plant lovers.

One recurring problem with plants is that, as they grow, they sometimes require repotting into larger containers. But what if that wasn’t necessary? What if the flower pot could adapt to the needs of the plant?

Once again, origami principles rush to the rescue.

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This is Growth, a resizable origami planter designed by Studio Ayaskan, and it incorporates origami folds into its basic design so that it can expand to fit the needs of a growing plant.

Unlike the Miura fold, Growth relies on a recurring series of triangular folds (possibly a variation of the Yoshimura folding pattern) that allow the piece to balloon outward, increasing the interior space for the plant’s root system to grow.

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This feels like one of those RVs where the ceiling can be raised and the sleeping area expanded out beyond the camper itself, offering greater freedom of movement and more living space than allowed when the RV is closed up for travel.

Watching the unfolding pot accordion outward is thoroughly impressive, and this feels like a smart step forward for all sorts of storage. Imagine a suitcase with a similar design that becomes bigger as needed. That would be super-handy.

As we continue to invent and innovate forward, it’s amazing how new creations can trace their origins back to classic techniques, just applied in a clever new fashion.

That’s the puzzly way, of course.

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(F)right This Way: Caption Contest Results!

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Long-time readers know that we periodically invite our fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers to show off their wordplay skills with puzzly prompts like our recurring hashtag game. We even invite our friends at Penny Dell Puzzles to participate!

A few months ago, we did things a little differently. A member of the Penny Dell crew cooked up an image for us, New Yorker-style, and we challenged our friends and readers to compose the perfect caption for it.

Well, in honor of Halloween, we held another Caption Contest, and this time, there were three images to choose from!

So, without further ado, let’s check out what all these clever folks conjured up!

#1

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“Knew my old American Crossword Puzzle Tournament costumes would come in handy someday!”

“Well if if isn’t Sum-Bob Squarepants and Ed-Word Pencilhands!”

Penny Press version of “The Little Match Girl”: “Now don’t come home until every last PennyDell pencil is sold!”

“Seriously, I can’t believe you found an alternate solve on my outfit without even trying testsolving my puzzle grid outfit first!”

“So what do we have here? Edward Pencilhands and a Boy Named Sue-Doku?”

“You’ve heard of Edward Scissorhands? Well, this is his lesser known third cousin, Bobby Pencil-Fingers!”

“Sorry to tell you kid, but you’re not solvable, no matter how many pencils you use.”

“Nine rows, nine columns, nine boxes, nine pencils, nine TREATS?” Forget it, kid, try your warped Aristotelian logic on the McDermots next door!

So then I said, “If you still can’t guess what I am supposed to be, the solution is on page 130!”

#2

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“Ah, so you’re the thief who’s been stealing toilet paper from the 3rd floor bathroom!”

Chasing down the mystery behind rising paper costs, puzzle publishers are squeezing the Charmin.

“I gotcha, Mr. or Mrs. Toilet Paper Bandit!” I’m so glad they didn’t use banana peels as their get away disguise.”

“Whodunnit solved! You need a pedicure!”

“Not so fast, toilet paper man! I heard that Dell Blockbuster Sudoku just hit the newsstands and there’s no way you’re beating me to it!”

“Next time, you may want to try gauze instead of Toilet Paper!”

“What does The Riddler dress up as on Halloween? A puzzle wrapped in an Enigma, of course!”

“You may be a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, but I can still read you like an open book!”

“Hold still, I’m trying to decrypt you!”

“Let me follow you to your Cryptogram!”

“Just wait until your Mummy finds out the Pyramid Words you said!”

“Hold still, the clues are unfolding before me!”

#3

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“After seeing the final ingredient for the soup, Gretel realized very quickly that making friends with the witch was only going to land her in hot water.”

“Eenie-meeni chili-beanie – I think this cauldron needs more pepper.”

“This isn’t like the Alphabet Soup on the Penny Press app at all!”

“The recipe for Alphabet Soup calls for a bay leaf, not eye of newt!”

“Matilda you fool! When I said “Eye of Newt”, I didn’t mean the 50th Speaker of the House!”

“Double, puzzle, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Puzzles appear in a slimy puddle–
Maybe the clue is ‘Barney Rubble’.”

“This isn’t how you find the Missing Vowels for the curse; I’ll look it up on the Penny Dell website on my iPhone!”

“I can’t ever remember what goes into this Alphabet Soup!”

“It keeps saying to start the Alphabet Soup with ‘Conjecture’ but I don’t understand where they are getting the E,C and T from!” the short witch exclaimed, as she read the directions aloud.

RECIPE TIME: WIZARD WORD STEW

In a large cauldron pour in ALPHABET SOUP, BITS AND PIECES of a SPIDER’S WEB, Lizard HEAD & TAILS, and a dash of HOCUS POCUS. Recite CODEWORDS until stew boils and BUBBLES and then serve with CRACKERS.

Have you come up with any fun captions for these images? Let us know! We’d love to see them!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!

ALIEN VS. EDITOR: Caption Contest Results!

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Long-time readers know that we periodically invite our fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers to show off their wordplay skills with puzzly prompts like our recurring hashtag game. We even invite our friends at Penny Dell Puzzles to participate!

But this month, we did things a little differently. A member of the Penny Dell crew cooked up an image for us, New Yorker-style, and we challenged our friends and readers to compose the perfect caption for it.

So, without further ado, let’s check out what all these clever folks conjured up!

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“Well General, it appears he’s looking for a 2-letter word for ‘Spielberg Film.’”

“He appreciates the mention in the Crossword, but he still thinks that two-letter entries are bad form.”

“He wants an answer for 3 Across, ‘Earth ending.'”

“He says they come in peace, but that could deteriorate very rapidly if we don’t give him the answer to 17-Across.”

“He travelled 47.2 light-years to tell us he needs help with 23-Across.”

“I guess he finds the clue ‘Little green man’ offensive. Some aliens are so touchy!”

“Sheesh, he thinks we have nothing better to do than help him with the Sunday Crossword every week? And they accuse us of being non-intelligent life forms.”

“Take me to your proofreader.”

“He appreciates the Crossword as a gesture of goodwill, but says he’s partial to Sudokus.”

“They harnessed nuclear fusion and have spaceships that travel three times the speed of light, but they still can’t make heads or tails of that Crossword.”

“Well this is awkward. He says his name is Oz, he comes from the planet Toto, and that Crossword he’s holding? He thinks it’s a map of Kansas.”

“Oh crap. Doug, remember that time capsule that we planted on Mars? The one with the Crossword puzzle? I guess we forgot to include the answer.”

“Apparently, on Proxima Centauri, they’ve never heard of Britney Spears.”

“All right…which one of you is Will Shortz?”

“IT’S A COOKBOOK!!!”

“I guess E.T. wants us to phone Dell”.

“Commander, he’s armed with a Easy Fast & Fun Crossword, someone get Penny Dell Puzzles on the phone!”

“Guess they don’t like being defined as aliens!”

“Says they found an alt-solve!”

“We don’t want to cross him.”

“He looks pretty cross.”

“Excuse me, can you show me where we are?”

In the background another alien yells out “Honey, I told you we don’t need directions!”

And the other, “Ugh, this is so embarrassing.”

And members of the PuzzleNation readership also got in on the fun!

One of our Facebook followers, Pat Manzo, offered up the delightful “He’s from the planet Rebus.”

Have you come up with any fun captions for this image? Let us know! We’d love to see them!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!

Jigsaw Puzzle Art Leads to Curious Creations!

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If there’s one thing that puzzle fans of all shapes and sizes excel at, it’s pattern recognition. Whether it’s patterns of letters, patterns of numbers, patterns of logical facts, or patterns of puzzle pieces, puzzlers are outstanding at drawing order from chaos.

So it should come as no surprise that avid jigsaw puzzle solvers have noticed that some jigsaw puzzle companies use the same cutting molds over and over to create their jigsaw puzzles.

I myself realized this fact when I was younger. I was given three small Star Wars jigsaw puzzles, and all three of them were cut from the same mold. So once I’d solved one, solving the other two went much much faster. (I actually stacked them to make it even easier to complete the second and third puzzles.)

Naturally, this has led certain attentive and intrepid puzzlers to track down different puzzles with the same cutting mold to see how the two puzzles interact.

Artist Tim Klein is one of those observant individuals, and he’s had a lot of fun over the years crafting peculiar images by combining jigsaws with compatible molds:

Jigsaw puzzle companies tend to use the same cut patterns for multiple puzzles. This makes the pieces interchangeable. As a result, I sometimes find that I can combine portions from two or more puzzles to make a surreal picture that the publisher never imagined.

I take great pleasure in “discovering” such bizarre images lying latent, sometimes for decades, within the pieces of ordinary mass-produced puzzles. As I shift the pieces back and forth, trying different combinations, I feel like an archaeologist unearthing a hidden artifact.

And today, we’ve collected some of his puzzly creations for your enjoyment.

This mixture of summer and winter is marvelously balanced, particularly with the summer and winter bridges matching up so perfectly.

This fusion of a church and fairground adds a fun touch to an otherwise quiet and dignified image.

I like to call this one the Earth Mooover.

The Iron Horse comes to life in this surreal mashup.

In a natural evolution, this dinosaur train is no doubt the apex predator of the animal-train hybrid food pyramid.

This dinosaur/bunny monstrosity is a cuddly little ball of viciousness. No train parts needed.

Mixing up elements of three different puzzles brings us this Victorian ladypuppy in front of a scenic waterfall. This is dream or nightmare fuel, depending on your perspective.

This mixture of crosswords and fishing is wonderfully executed, offering the pleasantly appropriate metaphorical representation of “fishing for answers.”

And to close out this compilation of Klein’s jigsaw art, it seemed only appropriate to end on a holiday-themed note, with this kitty-in-kitty-in-present melange.

Klein’s jigsaw creations are as eye-catching as they are puzzling, and it makes you wonder what other hybrid constructions are awaiting the eagle eye of a devoted jigsaw puzzler.

[Images and quotation courtesy of Awkward.com and Twisted Sifter.]

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Jigsaw Puzzle Art!

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[Image courtesy of the Official UK Puzzle Club.]

I tend not to talk about jigsaw puzzles all that much in this blog. It’s not that I have anything against jigsaw puzzles; it’s simply that, when it comes to the world of puzzles, for the most part, jigsaw puzzles occupy the easy end of the spectrum, and I prefer to focus on puzzles with a bit more bite or challenge.

(And yes, I do realize there are edgeless puzzles or repetitive patterns and 3-D puzzles that are far more challenging than the average jigsaw. But my point stands.)

That being said, when there’s something particularly interesting about jigsaws in the news, I’m happy to spread the word.

And I’ve got two jigsaw-centric stories for you today, both of which center around the worlds of art and pop culture.

The first story offers up some solvable art for you.

Artist Max Dalton finds inspiration in music and cinema, and one of his projects has been exploring the cultural impact and meaning of films by turning his art into 500-piece jigsaw puzzles.

There’s something immensely clever about that, since assembling a jigsaw requires you to study and stare at each element and figure out how it fits into the greater whole.

That’s a wonderful mentality to bring to films like King Kong or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, movies that offer a lot of subtext and invite plenty of conversation.

The second story follows in Dalton’s footsteps, but has a distinctly modern pop culture twist.

HBO is releasing a series of six 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles based on the works by artist Robert M. Ball. These puzzles depict key sequences from the show Game of Thrones, bringing bold colors and striking visuals to moments that fans and viewers still talk about today.

From Cersei’s assault on King’s Landing to Sansa turning Ramsey Bolton’s hounds loose on him, these are visceral moments presented with style.

The chance to savor them while putting them together seems like an undeniable treat for fans of the show.

It’s interesting to see topnotch artists elevating this classic puzzly form. I’m not much of a jigsaw guy, but these puzzles definitely had me thinking twice about giving them a shot.

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!