Licensing Art to Jigsaw Puzzle Manufactures – Tips and Resources

People love the challenge in putting together jigsaw puzzles and in over 200 years after its inception it is a thriving industry. They were originally manufactured to teach children geography in the 1760’s. Today children still learn about geography with them. Also, with the vast amount of available images on puzzles, assembling them has become a popular form of family entertainment. Thus, jigsaw puzzles is 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.

Jigsaw puzzles are not only manufactured in the original horizontal format but as ovals, circles, squares, vertically and in various freeform shapes depending upon the images place on the puzzles. Some even are three-dimensional shapes such as globes, animals and buildings. And they do not always have just a plain 2D picture printed on them but are embellished with glitter, perfume, or with a 3D image. Puzzles are not only made with cardboard but with wood, plastic, and rubber. Note: Wooden puzzles are expensive to produce and they are usually made one at a time. Many times the licensing deal that those manufacturers offer to artists is to put the artists art on their website. “If” the art is chosen by a customer, the manufacturer will product the puzzle and the artist will get paid a royalty or flat fee for the use.

Jigsaw puzzle manufacturers normally want art that

1. Has bright and saturate colors

2. Has an awe factor such as cute kittens, children playing, beautiful scenery and flowers, or landmarks that generates an emotional response in the consumer.

3. Does not have a lot of blank “white” space. Too much white space makes the puzzle difficult to assemble. But if the painting is of a popular subject or was painted by a well-known artist, the amount of white space does not seem to matter.

4. Is in a rectangular horizontal format. This is the most used format for jigsaw puzzles. However, some manufacturers produce puzzles in many formats as mentioned above. Thus, art created in formats different than horizontal also can be used for jigsaw puzzles.

Some jigsaw puzzle manufacturers produce puzzles for different specialty markets such as colleges, museums, children, teens, or mystery while others cater to the general retail market. In order to find out what type of images each manufacturer puts on their puzzles, you need to check out their websites. And if their art submission guidelines are not listed on the site, you need to contact them. Below is a list of jigsaw puzzle manufacturers that license art.

List of jigsaw puzzle manufacturers

Buffalo Games
Ceaco
Elms Puzzles (wooden puzzles)
Great American Puzzle Factory
Heritage Puzzle
Masterpiece Puzzles
Meissa and Doug
Ravensburger
Spilsbury
Springbok
Stave Puzzles (wooden puzzles)
Suns Out
TDC Games
White Mountain Puzzles Inc.

Comments are welcomed about this article. Please click on comments just below the article title and enter your comments.