Victoria business puzzles people with ‘diabolical’ designs, opens storefront

Right here’s a riddle: What do you get if you meld twenty first Century know-how with 18th Century creativity?

You get Victoria’s Puzzle Lab, after all. Positioned at 1322 Authorities St., the Puzzle Lab manufactures and sells heirloom-quality picket jigsaw puzzles that includes the creations of practically 50 Canadian artists.

Owned and operated by enterprise and life companions Tinka Robev and Andrew Azzopardi, the Puzzle Lab prints a replica of a specific portray on its state-of-the-art UV printer after which adheres it to a 1/4” sheet of Spanish Poplar plywood, sourced from timber grown sustainably on plantations.

The second step, utilizing a proprietary algorithm designed by Azzopardi (the agency’s self-described Mad Scientist), is to slice the artwork into advanced items utilizing a laser cutter. The outcomes are puzzles starting from 100 to 500 items, with problem ranges listed as “Straightforward Peasy” to “Not Enjoyable” for its extra difficult creations.

“Andrew and I’ve principally been in enterprise collectively since we met, shifting to Victoria in 2014,” Robev defined. “However for the primary six or seven years we operated a design enterprise, doing set up artwork like stage designs, commerce present cubicles and issues like that. We have been constructing bodily design objects along with the extra normal graphic design jobs like branding, bundle design and web site design.”

However the world pandemic, and the adjustments in interpersonal interactions it created noticed a lot of the pair’s workload all of a sudden evaporate, decreasing a lot of their efforts to web site design solely – which didn’t present Azzopardi with the hand’s on inventive satisfaction he loved.

“Andrew was getting antsy on the lack of bodily initiatives, however in the future noticed an commercial for some Russian-made picket jigsaw puzzles. He mentioned ‘wait a minute, we now have a laser cutter, we are able to most likely make this higher’ – so we gave ourselves six weeks to prototype, determine branding and to place a product on the market. That’s the place the Puzzle Lab got here from,” she mentioned.

Initially launched as a web-based enterprise in November 2020, the Puzzle Lab didn’t open its storefront location till April 2022. Utilizing a sequence of algorithms that mimics the expansion patterns of coral reefs offers the puzzles with a pure, virtually natural feeling, enhanced by the graceful laser-cut end of the picket items.

Whereas the primary formal jigsaw puzzles are believed to have been marketed in England throughout the 1760s, they bear little resemblance to the attractive, advanced Puzzle Lab creations.

“Andrew is single-handedly liable for driving all of our prospects loopy along with his scrumptious and diabolical lower patterns,” Robev joked.

Primarily promoting every part it produces, for the long run the Puzzle Lab hopes to increase its productiveness by including extra laser cutters, introducing extra designs, and even the opportunity of including different venues.

“Development isn’t every part for us. I need us to be often called a healthful native enterprise, placing artists on a pedestal and producing a product that may very well be a part of your loved ones for generations – good folks doing good enterprise,” she mentioned.

Do you might have a narrative tip? E mail: [email protected].

Comply with us on Twitter and Instagram, and like us on Fb.