Puzzle 835 - Logosphere

By Custom Puzzle Craft

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Puzzle 835 - Logosphere
100 Puzzles Project #99
33 1/8" wide at the widest part of the bottom half, 45 1/8" along the central vertical bar
2045 pieces!
In The Puzzlemaster documentary trailer, the $10 thousand, $20 thousand reference was to this puzzle!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77cSpl72Kl4


Doing a Stock Market puzzle has been something I've been wanting to do since the earliest days of Custom Puzzle Craft. I've been a stock market enthusiast going back to high school and in the summer of 1967 when I was 17, I worked for a month on the floor of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, picking up pink transaction slips from the trade stations and dropping them off at a collection point. I still have fond memories of those days, watching the ticker and broad tapes, watching a huge wall of mechanical digits showing selected stock prices and checking quotes on a Quotron machine. I've owned stocks through booms and busts and to this day continue to be "in the market".

About a year before I made this puzzle, I came up with the idea of doing a Standard & Poor's 500 Index (commonly referred to has the S&P 500) puzzle, first with ticker symbols and later came up with the idea of the logos. As the 100 Puzzles Project was winding down, and as I realized that the puzzle had to be very large to accommodate all the logos, I decided to go all out and make this puzzle one of final ones, eventually deciding to make it #99, the second to last puzzle as the project approached its climax. The S&P 500 index is considered one of the best indices for tracking the

After immersing myself in collecting the logos, I could write a thesis on the "psychology of logos"! I visited the websites of every one of the S&P 500 companies, including some ex-members which were dropped from the index during this project. I also visited the SEC website for every S&P 500 company to get each company's full name as incorporated as part of the documentation effort. I developed a company database for each compan in the S&P 500 Index with their logo, ticker symbol, website address and link to financial information on the NYSE or NASDAQ. The data gathering phase took more than a week. I made a major upgrade of my computer system so I could develop the design of the art work in Photoshop without having to cope with slow processing speeds. Every symbol was placed as a separate layer in Photoshop so that I could move them around as the design developed.


Logo grouping process prior to initial placement within the $ sign


Logos with names and symbols, prior to placement

The use of a $ sign for the shape of the puzzle was originally motivated by seeking a puzzle shape to celebrate capitalism; the $ sign was the obvious choice and itself is a good logo. Later as I realized just how big this puzzle was going to be, the $ sign became a convenient shape for handling the logistical factors in making such a large puzzle.

I view this work as a comprehensive work of art. The logos have been arranged mostly by industry sector, but there are many overrides! Some logos have many colors and I grouped some of these together, some by their inclusions of shapes or themes, for example stars, oval swooshes, energy rays, spheres and circles, vibrant healthy people. Some are paired as a play on their names or abbreviations.

I placed the financial sector (banks, insurance companies, rating agencies, brokers, etc.) at the bottom of the $ sign as the "foundation". Goldman Sachs was placed at the lower left of the vertical column before the recent scandal broke out.

The cutting effort for this puzzle was very, very substantial, highlighted by the fact that the puzzle was made from three large boards "expertly" knitted together via stack cutting.

The whole project took about a month of intense work.


The three boards of Logosphere


Middle board in "spray box" I made to keep the wind out of the spraying of fixative and acrylic on the surface of the mounted print
Note my "camera" shadow, lower left


Top section trimmed
The grids - bottom left and bottom center - were later used for stack cutting alignment


Top section after initial cutting
The two small section to the right were stack cutting participants


The two pieces mentioned in the previous picture would be in the two smaller polygons shown here


Middle section prior to trimming
Sticking out behind the board, upper left, is the failed version of Carnival of Harlequin - so much smaller, but itself a big puzzle!


Middle section trimmed prior to initial cutting


Initial cut in progress of middle board - always a challenging task to move big boards around a tiny blade and maintain the integrity of the cutting style!
Long Round cutting style sample print attached for guidance for scaling the style at two pieces per square inch


Stack cutting in progress!


Location of stack cut


Two boards well knit together!


More knitting (picture in shadow)


Cluster of "bringers of energy"


Orange and Red energy section


Logos mostly with Stars, mostly


Whirls, Swooshes, Orbits


Circles & Spheres


Healthy Happy


Special Signature Piece much larger than normal


Another View of my Signature Piece

* * * * *

Logosphere - Section Pictures - Traveling from upper right to lower left

As it happened (from my Journal archives)

The first mention of this puzzle was in an entry dated September 10, 2009 when I updated the Puzzle Queue section which used to be featured in my journal when I was making puzzles. I wrote:

September 10, 2009

Thursday 9:07 am - I have now updated The Puzzle Queue with the remainder of the 100 Puzzles Project puzzles. I was going to have three more large creative style "famous painting" puzzles in the final seven, but due to the extraordinary amount of work required by the current puzzle, First Harvest in the Wilderness, I've changed my plans.

99 - March 2010 - S&P 500 Logo puzzle - This is going to be a "Stock Market" puzzle with the logos of all 500 companies belonging to the S&P 500 index. This will take a massive amount of research to obtain all 500 logos in good resolution - possibly pushing back the completion of the project. The puzzle might be in the shape of a dollar sign. This will be the last Long Round puzzle in the project. Will have at least 1000 pieces, possibly 2000.

The second mention of this puzzle was in an entry dated January 4, 2010 when I discussed my plans for 2010 including the remaining four puzzles of the 100 Puzzles Project still left to go at that time. For #99 I wrote:

January 4, 2010
Monday 1:01 pm

#99 - This will be a major project. I plan to cut a puzzle in the shape of a dollar sign ($). The puzzle will contain the logos of all companies in the Standard & Poor's "S&P 500" Stock Market Index, plus Custom Puzzle Craft's signature piece logo. A few weeks ago I started the massive project of obtaining the logos of all 500 companies, but haven't resumed work on it. Recently changes were made to the S&P 500 index so I'll have to go back and update my list of companies. Building a collage will be a substantial task. I'd like to get this puzzle done by the end of March 2010, this may slip. This puzzle will be cut in Long Round and will be the last all Long Round puzzle of the project, my goal is 2000 pieces.

No further mention occurred until late February, followed by the formal making of the puzzle. In the early going I received adivce from several people that I could get sued for using logos in this puzzle without permission. I was quite paranoid in the early going and mentioned that the auction might be private or without pictures. Eventually I decided I had the artistic license to do whatever I wanted, relaxed, but still limited the pictures shown in the auction.

February 27, 2010

Saturday 12:37 am - Earlier this week, during some spare time, I continued to develop a collection of corporate logos for #835, the #99th puzzle of the 100 Puzzles Project - The S&P 500 puzzle. I now have logo files for 80 of the 500 companies in the index. After the Carnival of Harlequin auction is launched I will step up work collecting the complete set of logos and then begin the major task of designing the image for the puzzle - the puzzle may be so large that I might have to use stack cutting to combine two boards into a single puzzle - this remains to be seen. If I'm successful combining boards, I will likely use this technique for #100, the massive Grand Finale of the project.

February 28, 2010

Sunday 6:35 pm - I'm very psyched to get the 100 Puzzles Project done! Puzzle #835, the 99th puzzle of the Project, informally named at this point as The S&P 500 Index Puzzle, requires that I locate art for all 500 of the corporate logos for the companies belonging to the S&P 500 index. I will resume work on this soon - then I need to do the challenging task of designing the puzzle! The last puzzle of the project requires work to get rights to an extremely high resolution digital image of the art work, I expect to get back to this task after I have acquired all 500 logos for #99 and before I start cutting #99.

March 2, 2010

Tuesday 10:53 pm - I worked obtaining corporate logo graphics for the next puzzle, The S&P 500 Index Puzzle. A few days ago I said I had 80 done, turns out I had 70 done. I now have 120 done

March 4, 2010

Thursday 10:10 pm - This afternoon I did a little more prep work on the 99th puzzle of the project, The S&P 500 Puzzle. I went back and standardized the sizes of the logo images I had collected so far and collected some more, I now have 140 of the 500 logos on file.

March 5, 2010

Friday 4:34 pm - Today I continued work on collecting logos for the next puzzle. I now have 200 logos collected. 500 logos will take up a huge amount of area to display them nicely - I'm going to have quite a bit of work figuring out how to design this puzzle and manipulate the art work, 500 layers in Photoshop will be virtually impossible to work with. I might have to go to Apple and purchase a really big screen! With the shape of the puzzle being a $ sign, that means the dimensions of the puzzle will have to be even bigger due to the irregular shape. The $ sign will have to be very "fat

March 6, 2010

Saturday 3:41 pm - This logo collection thing I'm doing is taking a huge amount of time. I now have 254. I've been dissatisfied with the quality of the art for a bunch of them and found out that I can occasionally find a better one on the back cover of annual reports - so I went back and tweaked a whole bunch of logos. Wikipedia is an excellent source for many, but for many others the resolution is poor. Google Images fills in quite a few more, but for some I have to root through corporate websites. So there is work finding them and getting the art. Sometimes good ones are in black and white while the real logo is in color so I have to transfer the colors to create an excellent logo. Some logos have changed over time and I have to be sure I have the current one. New logos in Green and Blue are popular. Even the the S&P 500 index has changed since I started with two companies dropped and two added! From one perspective there may be massive copyright problems in what I'm doing, but from mine there are none. Andy Warhol painted a Campbell Soup can. This is what I'm doing in spirit, but celebrating the personae of 500 big public companies! Six hours today, a lot of work. I will pace myself going forward at about 50 a day - no more going back and tweaking, so the time spent going forward should be more streamlined.

March 7, 2010

Sunday 11:30 am - Got up early and knocked off 46 more logos with about a half dozen requiring a lot of work to get decent ones. I now have 300 and that's it for today - too much staring at the computer screen. Many companies have changed their logos in the past few years unbeknownst to me until now. For example Kraft Foods:


Kraft Foods Inc. - old and new logos
The general shade of blue used for the lettering is very, very popular when it comes to logos!

I'll resume work on this project tomorrow.

 

March 8, 2010

Monday 7:44 pm - I'm continuing to work on the logos, now have 366 done. I'm currently seeking legal advice regarding the project. If there is a legal problem, the puzzle will be auctioned off eBay via private bids, as I will make the puzzle and offer it for sale. The puzzle will be a limited edition of one. An alternative, if there is a problem, is to auction on eBay with obscure language and no pictures.

March 9, 2010

Tuesday 6:36 pm - I'm continuing to work on the logo project and now have 400 logos on file. I've renamed the proposed puzzle from The S&P 500 Puzzle to Corporate Logosphere Celebration. The logo set will continue to be those of the 500 companies comprising the S&P 500 Index. The new puzzle name is tentative.

March 10, 2010

Wednesday 3:56 pm - In a very long effort since early this morning I got another 50 logos done, now up to 450 for puzzle #835, the 99th puzzle of the 100 Puzzles Project, Corporate Logosphere Celebration. I expect to complete the gathering tomorrow. Then a break and then figuring out how I'm ever going to manipulate 500 files into a single image! I do in fact plan on going to an Apple store and seeing what kind of super large screens they have for working with very large images.

March 11, 2010

Thursday 1:01 pm - Finally, after working all morning, the logo collection phase of the next puzzle is done. From Abbott Laboratories to Zions Bancorporation. I'm going to take the rest of the day and tomorrow off.

There are logos all over the internet, some people sell digital images to graphics artists, but nowhere have I seen any art made from a collection of logos. So maybe this will be the "forbidden puzzle" of the 100 Puzzles Project. I'm currently seeking legal advice. I'm going to make the puzzle, selling it is the issue. I suspect the auction is going to be by invitation only, that is only to those in my 100 Puzzles Project Email Notification List (see 100 Puzzles Project near the top - "Join My Auction Notice List") - if you want to be notified about this puzzle's auction.

March 13, 2010

Saturday 6:59 pm - A long review of the logo set, which I started yesterday, is complete. I found and fixed about a half dozen errors or that some companies had changed their logos. I'm taking tomorrow, my birthday, off; next post will be on Monday.

March 16, 2010

Tuesday 5:35 pm - I still have not worked out the details or even made a general decision for how the next puzzle will be auctioned. I've had some nice time off, and tomorrow I'll wend my back towards the Project, by purchasing upgrades in both hardware and software in preparation for the substantial work that will be required to prepare the image for this puzzle. The puzzle will likely be larger than I can handle with even my largest saw for the initial cut, so I'm going to have to stack cut and knit two boards together, very likely, this will require some planning and practice. Because the $ sign shaped puzzle will have holes, this process could be a lot easier than it seems, maybe not.

March 17, 2010

Wednesday 7:35 pm - Didn't get to computer equipment today, will tomorrow. Instead I focused on dance notes, nearly a month behind! Almost certain now that the auction for #99 will be restricted to those on my 100 Puzzles Project notification list, via off-eBay auction. To be invited, go to 100 Puzzles Project and read the Join My Auction Notice List info at the top. After the puzzle is made I will have some low-rez pictures here, then eventually hi-rez long after the auction is done.

March 18, 2010

Thursday 1:41 pm - Placed an order for a massive upgrade of computer equipment. Been running w/ Macs since 1985 and will continue doing so. Ordered a "Mac Pro" w/ 2 Intel 2.93GHz Quad-Core Xenon processors, 16 GB of RAM, an ATI Graphics Card - Radeon HD 4870 512MB, two 2TB 7200-rpm hard drives, a massive 30" Flat Panel Cinema Display and a few smaller items (e.g. keyboard, mouse, etc.). Don't know what some of this means, but it's all pretty much top of the line. Should arrive in about a week. Now I need to focus on upgrading Photoshop.

March 20, 2010

Saturday 6:55 pm - Yesterday I ordered the Adobe's Creative Suite 4 to upgrade Photoshop - also includes Dreamweaver which will replace the long discontinued Adobe GoLive software I used to create and still use to update this website. I plan to continue using GoLive for the time being. The bank declined my credit card for portions of the Apple order so I had to make phone calls to fix that. May be another week before I receive everything.

Meanwhile I've developed a bad case of allergic rhinoconjunctivitis - my eyes ghoulish red - third day now. I'm taking medication and I really hope I see some progress soon. I have no idea what has brought this on.

March 23, 2010

Tuesday 9:55 am - I continue to suffer a very irritating eye situation affecting both eyes - nothing I've done has helped. I will be seeking a specialist. It is very unlikely that I'll want to cut puzzles which create dust with my current condition.

Meanwhile I have received shipment of the Adobe software I ordered and the large display screen. The computer was shipped out yesterday and I should receive it by the end of the week.

I have now decided how I'll conduct the auction. The auction will be on eBay. On eBay I'll show a silhouette of the puzzle (the $ shape) and detailed pictures of the back side. The discussion of the subject matter will be limited with no company names mentioned. I've changed the name of the puzzle from Corporate Logosphere Celebration to S&P 500 Logosphere. I will be posting pictures of the front side of the puzzle on this website in a location accessible to those in my auction notification list. I have not decided how I'll publish pictures of the puzzle after the auction is completed, as I do create pages for each puzzle in the 100 Puzzles Project.

March 25, 2010

Thursday 5:45 pm - Computer arrived today. During this afternoon's session to set it up, the inevitable glitch came up, the 30" display uses FireWire 400 and the Mac has FireWire 800 ports, so I need to buy an adapter. Will do so tomorrow morning. After the computer is up and running, I then need to install Photoshop (and the rest of Adobe's Creative Suite), get connected to the Internet and then purchase, download and install some other basic software. Then I should be able to start design work on puzzle #835, S&P 500 Logosphere. First I'll get the latest list of S&P 500 companies and check for changes, then I will then "freeze" the list, with the official "as of" date for this puzzle set to Friday, March 26, 2010. Later I'll need to get new printer drivers for my printer.

Eye problem continuing; I've eliminated all "bad things" from my diet, to increase the odds of recovery.

March 27, 2010

Saturday 8:42 pm - Yesterday I got my new computer up and running and installed the Adobe software. Today I purchased and installed new software to recognize my file with the 500 logos in it. Also today, I "froze" the logo file to the latest business day, March 26, 2010. Only one event occurred since March 9th: S&P 500 members Black & Decker Corp and Stanley Works merged to form Stanley Black & Decker, Inc., freeing up space for a new member with the ungainly name of ONEOK, Inc.

On Monday, I'll start the next phase, that is to develop five or ten "Palettes" (Photoshop images) with the logos divvied amongst them in a manner I'll work out on the fly.

After that I'll design the $ sign shape - it will be a very fat $ so all of the logos can fit without the puzzle being truly massive in size.

After that I'll start moving the logos from the Palettes to the working image.

Still no improvement regarding my eyes - a distressing situation. I have an appointment with a specialist on Monday.

March 29, 2010

Monday 2:58 pm - I have been diagnosed has having a "very severe" infection of my sinuses and the infection is causing a lot of associated problems. I've been given two prescriptions of rather high dosage medications, the doctor does think my situation is curable. Hopefully I'll improve in the coming days.

S&P 500 Logosphere has been put on hold, I expect to resume work on the project later this week. At that time, I'll do another check for S&P listing changes and then re-freeze the listing. When I recover to the point of feeling good, I will put my full efforts into moving the Project along, as I very much want to get Logosphere completed and the auction launched by mid April so I can then put my full attention on #100! If the intellectual property issues associated with #100 are not resolved by the time I'm ready to work on it, I'll begin preparing for the 100 Puzzles Project presentation I'm to give at the August puzzle parley.

April 1, 2010

Thursday 9:38 am - There's a story in the local news about three huge puzzle pieces which washed up on the shore at Coronado beach, each approximately 10 feet across! Two of them are edges pieces which fit together. I'm going over to get photos.

Thursday 9:45 pm - Hmmm.... well my April foolishness maybe too real? Would have been nice to get some great photos of giant mysterious beached puzzle pieces, but alas, they were a figment of my fertile imagination!

I did not do any puzzle work today, other than visit Mixed Media for the first time in quite a while.


Cloudscape taken today
Highly processed in Photoshop

Tomorrow I will start the design work for Logosphere, for sure.

April 2, 2010

Friday 4:15 pm - At last I've begun the design work for puzzle #835 S&P 500 Logosphere, the 99th puzzle of the 100 Puzzles Project! Today I designed the shape of the puzzle. I examined 100's of fonts and picked the $ sign shape I liked the best, then modified it by fattening the shape and rounding the ends of the "S" in Photoshop, plus doing a little tweaking in spots.


Puzzle #835 - shape designed today

To get all 500 logos to fit within this shape, the puzzle will have to be huge. Using a grid and a lot of patience, I've figured that the solid part of the $ sign takes almost exactly 2/3 of the area within a minimal rectangle enclosing the $ sign. I then figured that if I want to allocate about 2 square inches per logo, the puzzle will have to be around 33.5" wide and 45" high! This will require knitting two, or very likely three, boards together via stack cutting. I expect to do some full scale rehearsals of the stack cutting, to make sure I can do it without problems before I ever consider doing the production cutting. The production cutting, of course, won't come until after the logo placement design work is done - a super challenging task. The size of the puzzle is not final, it may be increased slightly - this will be decided as I work out the placement of the logos. I've upped the projected piece count from the very preliminary number I had posted of about 1000, to a more realistic figure, about 2000! I will do the printing myself, but the mounting will be contracted out - so if I make a mistake during the stack cutting, I'll have to reprint and re-contract the mounting each time.

I reviewed the latest list of S&P 500 companies, published by Standard & Poor's as of April 1. No changes to what I already had, so April 1, 2010 is now the official freeze date, more appropriate for the April puzzle. My logo set is an incredible tour-de-force of iconic imagery. The puzzle is going to be cool.

April 3, 2010

Saturday 12:27 pm - I'm now deep into Logo Research, examining the logos of major corporations and making some preliminary groupings according to kind. Some logos consist of the company's name with no embellishment, others just the company's initials, some with the initials and the name, some with creative marks, usually to the left of the name, sometimes above or to the right, but in all 500 cases, never below; there are other categories. A bunch of "creative mark" logos have swirls or swooshes around their names, others stylized signs of vibrant life, growth, radiant energy, global aspirations. A precious few contain just a mark and no name, for example, Apple's famous Apple logo.


A giant screen, a fast computer and state of the art software are speeding this project along


The fascinating world of logos
Close up photo of the Corporate Logos window with zoomed in imagery - showing some hints of groupings
All logos copyrighted and / or trademarked and / or service marked by their respective owners.

This project now goes dark (no more imagery) until my work is done.

Note: The remaining two puzzles in the 100 Puzzles Project will be limited editions of ONE. There will be no figureals in #99, probably at least a few in #100.

Saturday 2:00 pm - Correction: there are three exceptions to my "never below" remark, DTE Energy Company, Hasbro, Inc. and KeyCorp. Done for today, will resume some work tomorrow.

April 4, 2010

Sunday 7:26 pm - Earthquake! While at my 7th floor apartment at 3:40 PM during a quiet afternoon I became aware of light rocking and creaking which I immediately recognized as an earthquake. The intensity kept building and by 30 seconds or so, the whole building was swaying and creaking - a big one was in progress, but where? I heard various light banging noises and heard one instance of glass breaking, dogs were barking outside. I took to the center of my living room, alert to the max, and then things gradually quieted down, my heart racing. A quick look around, couple kitchen cabinet doors had opened, a closet door opened and a sliding glass shower door had slid to the other end. For the next hour the building continued to sway slightly like a cruise ship in a gentle swell, punctuated by several smaller aftershocks. The major quake, a mag 7.2, I've heard has caused some major destruction near its epicenter, but was centered in a very sparsely populated area in Baja California, Mexico about 110 miles away. The positive spin on this is that pressure has been released from the closest major fault line from here. Whew!

I did a little work on Logosphere today before the quake, firming the official size to about 33" x 45" in size and designing guide lines for the eventual stack cutting which will take place. I've also decided that I'll do the mounting myself, as I don't want to be dependent on a third party if I have to start the puzzle over again. I expect to do some work each day going forward. The next task is another review of the logo set. There are some which I've decided have unsatisfactory resolution, I figure it will take me about four hours to review the set and I expect to upgrade the imagery for about 10 of them if I can locate a better source for each one. Also to be decided is whether or not all of the logos will be oriented at zero degrees in the puzzle design or if I'll rotate some. After that I'll begin the logo placements.

April 5, 2010

Monday 8:38 pm - I did just a little more work today on Logosphere. Of the 500 logos, I decided to attempt upgrading five of them. Turns out one had changed slightly in the past year or so, so I'm lucky there. I was able to improve four of them, for the fifth an extensive search came up empty; it's really OK, I'm just being a nerd here, lol.

Tomorrow, finally, I begin the task of designing the puzzle's image using the logos. I have decided that I will rotate some of them initially to highlight similar characteristics. However, rotating them may cause too much white space to appear in the image, upsetting my calculations of how the logos will fit in the giant $ sign. All will be worked out one way or another in due course.

I noted three small aftershocks today, all of them 4-point-somethings. I suspect 99% of the population didn't notice them, being in a high rise amplifies these things. The common consensus is that yesterday's big quake was the strongest felt around here in about 20 years.

April 6, 2010

Tuesday 10:47 pm - No work on Logosphere today. Tomorrow I will definitely get moving on Logosphere, in fact I plan to spend pretty much all day on it - the only interruption will be a follow-up doctor's appointment regarding my recent severe sinus infection which is "mostly" better.

April 7, 2010

Wednesday 7:04 pm - Took a short walk to purchase a sandwich and when I returned - just a three minute walk, my wallet - fat with a recent ATM withdrawal, was gone. Highly annoying, particularly as I'll never know what happened. I immediately cancelled all cards - before any activity occurred, cashed a check, bought a new wallet.

Today I worked about seven hours on Logosphere placing logos in the giant $ sign. I experienced another annoyance as the normally super-solid Photoshop crashed well into a long work session. Fortunately, I had just saved the primary file, but I lost the updates to the five worksheet files I was using to track which logos had been placed and which ones I still had to do; I had to spend almost two hours figuring everything out. Work will continue later this evening, as I really want to get this phase behind me.

April 8, 2010

Thursday 10:54 pm - Been working long hours today on the initial placement of logos within Logosphere. I have about 475 of the 500 initially placed. There is going to be some leftover space within the $ sign when I'm done with the initial placement, not much, but enough that redistribution will be required. There are some places where the logos are bunched pretty tightly, I think I can work things out without downsizing the size of the $ sign, a very disruptive option. Tomorrow I'll continue the project, completing the initial placement and then beginning the redistribution. One more crash today, plus a freeze up, but frequent file saving kept damage to a minimum. Every logo is a separate "layer" in Photoshop, I'm sure I'm pushing the software here; the file is about 1/4 gig in size.

This morning we had a stronger aftershock, a 5.3 near where the original quake hit, quite a few people felt it here. Nothing since then.

April 9, 2010

Friday 8:53 pm - I made good progress with Logosphere today. I completed the initial placement of the logos, and according to procedures, feel pretty confident that all 500 have been placed and there are no duplicates. I made several passes at spreading the logos within the "$" while maintaining the various groupings as much as possible. This evening I checked the latest listing of the 500 S&P Index components and determined no changes have taken place since April 1, so the final official "as of" date will be today April 9, 2010. I plan to include some very small text within the image to state this.

Tomorrow I'll make one more review of the giant image (33 1/4" wide by 45 1/4" high at 400 dots per inch). Then I need to locate some printer drivers and download and install them and hopefully print the big image, in three strips.

April 10, 2010

Saturday 6:11 pm - I made the final tweaks to Logosphere today. I located the latest printer drivers for my printer, but they are almost three years old and my new computer doesn't recognize them sigh. My Epson 7600 is now about seven years old and the last driver release was for the "Leopard" version of Mac O/S (10.5.x), while my new computer has the "Snow Leopard" version of Mac O/S (10.6.x). So.... I flattened the big Photoshop puzzle file, divided it into three files (one corresponding to each strip to be printed) and moved them to my old mainstay computer. Fortunately the antiquated version of Photoshop on that computer was able to read the files. I started printing about 2 1/2 hours ago and I'm only 1/2 way through the second strip! I'm printing at the highest resolution possible on the printer, which is why the prints are taking so long. The resolution of the logos is stunning, they are crisp and sharp looking with excellent colors.

There is a 501st logo in the puzzle, my Signature Piece! I will color line cut the Signature Piece and it will be the signature piece for this puzzle. While I will sign the back of it, per my usual practice, this piece will also stand in as the piece marking the puzzle as a 100 Puzzles Project puzzle - this is indicated on the front of the piece, the one and only time this will have occurred in the Project.


Puzzle #835 S&P 500 Logosphere - the 501st logo
I wanted "Logosphere" on the piece, but the p's descender line came in the narrowest part and I decided to use "Stock Index" instead
The name of the puzzle will still be S&P 500 Logosphere

I've had a setback with my eyes, as the redness and tearing have returned. Not as bad as before, but still unpleasant.

Tomorrow I'll go to Mixed Media and prepare the three boards for this puzzle and I expect to mount one of them. The mounting will be at the rate of one a day as I have only one press big enough for the sections and I want the boards to be in the press for a full day.

April 11, 2010

Sunday 8:02 pm - Today I prepared the three boards for Logosphere. Eventually, the three large boards will be overlapped and "stack cut" to make the one puzzle. This evening I mounted the upper strip of the "$" image on the smallest board (still a very large 17 1/8" by 31 5/8"), the mount is currently in the press, I'll know how it came out tomorrow. I'll have pictures here down the road.

April 12, 2010

Monday 6:40 pm - The mount of the upper strip looks perfect. I just mounted the middle sized board (19 1/4" by 34 1/2") with the bottom strip of the "$" image; tomorrow I'll know how the mount came out.

Tomorrow morning I have another appointment regarding my sinus infection, as the inflammation returned after completing a course of medicine. Late tomorrow afternoon I expect to mount the third and last strip of the "$" image.

April 13, 2010

Tuesday 3:09 pm - The second mount also looks perfect! I'm having much better success with mounting large thick computer art paper prints compared to the troubles I've had with large lithographs. I've now mounted the third one, largest sized board (22 11/16" by 34 1/4"), being the middle print of the "$" image. I'll know how it came out tomorrow.

Here are some pictures of today's mount job:


Puzzle #835 - middle print, face down on my 24" x 36" mounting press board (my largest press)


Puzzle #835 - middle board - ready for glue application


Puzzle #835 - middle board after I rolled the glue on with the paint roller


Puzzle #835 - middle board - clamped!

There's a saying "publish or perish" or is it "publish and perish"? The Observer, yes, he's still around, or she, anyway he said, Man it's ART, ART, ART! There are freedoms in ART, and isn't it one of a kind? Man oh Man, just do it and forget it! Then he said, well I'm going to do it - yes it's $ shaped and I filled in the non-space w/ black so it stands out. Yeah, super reduced, take a look here. Year 2016 note - the "here" link pointed to an temp area long deleted. I have found the picture and am posting below:

logosphere_observer

April 14, 2010

Wednesday 9:02 pm - The final mount also looks perfect! I'm pretty sure this mount is the largest flawless mount I've done in house. Three for three.

Today I spent about four hours at the shop building a "spray box". Basically a large four sided wooden frame 23" high which surrounds a 2x3 foot removable board which just fits at the bottom. I'll have pictures tomorrow. Since I do my spraying of fixative and acrylic on computer prints outdoors, for this giant puzzle I want an environment where I can spray at a substantial distance from the work without being affected by the wind and hopefully get a fairly uniform coating. I am going to do some testing tomorrow. If all goes well I'll do the production spraying on Friday and do all of the initial cutting of the three boards over the weekend. The critical work will be the stack cutting to knit the boards together - my standards will be very high here. I've figured out a sequence of cutting so that if one stack cut fails I don't have to abandon the complete work - just redo one board, but if a retry fails in the same area, then I have to start the whole thing over or at least redo two boards. I'm planning to do to several "big test" stack cuts before I do any initial cutting. Obviously I won't do any detailed cutting until all of the stack cuts are successfully executed.

It is crucial that I work out a method for doing large stack cuts with a high degree of success as the final puzzle of the project, as currently planned, will be even larger and will require at least three monster stack cuts that will be very tricky to execute.

I have decided to name Puzzle #835 simply Logosphere, instead of S&P 500 Logosphere.

I'm still under duress from my sinus infection / eye situation, not quite as bad as yesterday.

April 15, 2010

Thursday 5:28 pm - Made good progress today. The "spray box" worked extremely well in keeping the wind out, and keeping out kicked up dirt. After doing a test spray I went ahead with the production spraying; all three Logosphere boards are done and now ready for cutting. I then disassembled and stored the box.


Spray box designed and built yesterday and used today for keeping the wind away while board spraying
Now taken apart, I expect to reuse it for the final puzzle of the Project.

I then did some test "stack cutting". "Stack cutting" is simply nailing two boards on top of each other and then cutting them, then taking then boards apart and hoping the bottom section of interest fits perfectly with the top section of interest. I first cut a long stack cut about 16" long in Long Round cutting style. Failure. The top halves fit together, the bottom halves did not in one "direction"; also problems with pairing the top left / bottom right and top right / bottom left. The blade was aligned properly. I figured out that I was pushing too hard into the blade causing it to bend, creating the problems. Also, I was using the center of the blade, which has more give, as I placed the wood on the "raw" metal table of scroll saw. Afterwards I did two more cuts, smaller ones, constantly letting the wood "float" to a state where the blade was not stressed; also I had my 1/4" thick Masonite board taped to the metal table and then a 1/2" wooden board on top of that, meaning I was cutting further up the blade where there is less bending possible. Success. Both cuts were problem free. Tomorrow I plan to do three long stack cuts - all three must be problem free before I risk stack cutting Logosphere, if not, I'll keep practicing until I've successfully cut three long stack cuts in a row. Eventually I'll document the actual stack cutting of Logosphere.


Stack cutting tests

Kim said my eyes looked "puffy".

April 16, 2010

Friday 10:54 pm - This is a little complicated, but the following diagram shows how I cut the boards today.


The black lines are where the stack cutting will take place tomorrow to knit together the overlapping boards

The top board (red lines) was cut into four sections. Not shown is that the outer white areas were trimmed off (for all of the boards). The middle board (blue lines) was cut into eight sections. The bottom board (green lines) was cut into four sections. The two smaller red board sections are about in the same location as the upper two blue board sections. The two overlapping red / blue pairs will be precisely aligned and nailed together and stack cuts made along the black lines (in Long Round cutting style). This will knit the red board with the blue board. The same procedure will be done to knit the bottom part of the blue board with the green board. After I'm done, the extend of each board will be like this:


How the sections will fit together after stack cutting

Friday 6:14 pm - Excellent day - Marathon day at the shop, about 7 hours. I did three practice stack cuts, each about a foot long. The first came out pretty good, the next two excellent. Tightening the blade tighter than normal to reduce bending and feeding the wood with very light pressure does the job. Slow going but the results are good, each cut took 20-25 minutes. I then started production! First I did a rough trim of all the excess white areas beyond the $ for all three boards. Then for each board I did the initial production cuts, subdividing each board into two sections. About three inches of the bottom board required use of the big 30" Excalibur, the rest of the initial cutting was done on the 22" Hegner. After that I switched to my mainstay 18" Hegner. For the top and bottom boards I cut out the sections which will be involved in stack cutting. For the middle board I subdivided each half and then for each quarter removed the section which will be involved with stack cutting. The result - 16 sections, including four pairs of sections which have to be stack cut. I'll have a diagram here eventually - when I document the stack cutting - will also have photos. Cutting went very well, zero problems with the paper or gluing. The only negative was I hit a pretty bad void in middle section, in the fourth ply down of the five ply - I'll have to fill this before doing piece work. I lost one small knob end here, the back most layer, did not affect the front - it's in the shop somewhere and after the puzzle is done I'll sweep and strain everything, hopefully find it and fix it.

Tomorrow I plan to do the four stack cuts, and assuming no problems, then do all of the edge work for the $ sign. On Sunday I'll began cutting actual pieces. I'll take Monday off and then resume cutting on Tuesday.

Encouragingly, the sawdust did not affect my eyes at all.

April 17, 2010

Saturday 7:09 pm - Another day of excellent progress. The four stack cuts were successful. Two of them outstanding, one OK, one so-so, a few hairs off, but barely noticeable in a couple spots if you know where to look. The most important thing is that all four pairs of knitted sections fit together very nicely! This took about three hours of work, then another two hours to do the outline and the two interior holes. The 16 sections fit together well, and on general inspection no way can you tell the work is from three boards!


Logosphere art work, the 16 sections assembled: 33 1/8" wide in the wider lower section, the vertical bar 45 1/8" high.

I'm going to take Sunday and Monday off, and then go into marathon mode, until the work is done. I'll decide on Tuesday morning if the work is to have around 2000 pieces or around 2500 pieces.

April 19, 2010

Monday 2:34 pm - I decided to do some cutting today, between other tasks. I cut about 110 pieces of Logosphere, starting with the top of the $ sign. Cutting is going very, very well, paper holding up with zero problems. I expect to ramp up a bit tomorrow, with a goal to cut about 300 pieces. I have decided to keep the projected piece count at 2000. Will save a higher number for the final puzzle of the 100 Puzzles Project! The puzzle pieces of Logosphere are being cut in my "regular" size, that is about two pieces per square inch instead of my "small" size of three pieces per square in that I frequently use for the Project puzzles. I expect the puzzle to be completed by the end of this coming weekend, with the auction starting on or about April 27th.

April 20, 2010

Tuesday 10:57 pm - Puzzle cutting marathon today, cut around 400 pieces in about seven hours, a good pace for my Long Round cutting style. I continue to have no problems whatsoever with the paper / mounting, everything going very well! I now have a total of just over 500 pieces done, about a quarter of this huge puzzle. I'm continuing to take pictures and will post them when I document the puzzle. Marathon continues tomorrow, after I catch up on some email.

I'm somewhat behind on creating webpages for recent puzzles, I'll get caught up on this after Logosphere is auctioned and I begin the build up for #100!

Eyes still bothering me a bit....

April 21, 2010

Wednesday 6:12 pm - I cut about 300 pieces of Logosphere today, now up to about 800 out of the projected 2000. Cutting continues to go well. This puzzle is huge. I've now encompassed two of the four stack cuts - virtually invisible within the 800 piece assembled section, very pleased with this.

I forgot I have Jury Duty tomorrow! Have to report to Superior Court at 7:45 AM! I figure I have four more days of cutting, certainly at least three, and another day to sand the back, inspect, clean-up, count the pieces, take photos, prepare for the auction. I was hoping to have the auction launched before the end of April; should I be placed on a Jury, this schedule could be impacted.


Logosphere - latest status
Obviously, the full work will not fit on my 35" x 23" working surface


Fat lizard in the garden area at Mixed Media, yesterday - about actual size.
I was about to get within a couple feet for this picture.

April 22, 2010

Thursday 6:20 pm - Very long day today. Got up early to do Jury Duty; by 2:30 PM the 250 or so remaining people of the initial crowd who reported were let go, including myself, only two trials the whole day needed jury panels! So that's done! I did get in some pretty intense cutting afterwards and cut about 140 more pieces of Logosphere, plus I initiated repairs to two voids encountered earlier. One is fairly extensive and may require more repairs tomorrow.

I was looking at my records to see how many puzzles with more than 1000 pieces I've cut. I did four in 2001, two in 2003, one in 2008 and four last year (2009). Four of the last five have been 100 Puzzles Project puzzles.

The day is not over, I have tango classes this evening! Tomorrow I have a follow-up doctor's appointment regarding sinus / eye problems, then I expect to do quite a bit of cutting as I continue to focus on moving this puzzle along.

April 23, 2010

Friday 6:13 pm - Made more progress with Logosphere cutting just over 300 pieces. I figure I have around 1240 done, and about 780-800 to go (the puzzle will have a little more than 2000 pieces). Cutting continues to go well, no complications encountered repairing the two void areas. I'm now working in the middle right section of the "$", lots of health care, biotech and medical equipment companies there, transitioning to tech companies. Cool project.

I expect to complete cutting on April 26. Preliminary Auction launch date now April 28.

As for my health, the odds are increasing that I have some kind of fungal infection in my sinuses. In talking things over with my doctor, the best plan is to get a scan, so a plan of action can be developed.

April 24, 2010

<Saturday 6:56 pm - More progress today, getting in about five hours of cutting this afternoon. Now have about 1450 pieces done, with 590 or so pieces to go. Cutting continues to go well. I also have the next big chunk subdivided are ready for piece cutting. I plan to do quite a bit of cutting tomorrow.

April 25, 2010

Sunday 7:04 pm - Made good progress on Logosphere again, cutting about 300 pieces. With about 1750 pieces done, this puzzle is now in second place in regards to the most number of pieces and now my largest interlocking puzzle in size. I've been "traveling" the "S" curve of the $ sign - now just have the portion in the lower left to do; the vertical column is almost complete. Hit another void area today, slowed me down for a while, all fixed. I'll be extremely happy when this puzzle is done!

Tomorrow I have other things to do; I expect to get a little cutting in and then complete the cutting on Tuesday. Auction still scheduled for the 28th, may slip to the 29th, but April for sure.


I cut this 3x4 feet board and painted it black for displaying the puzzle for the upcoming photo shoot

April 26, 2010

Monday 2:19 pm - I arrived at the shop earlier than normal this morning in an effort to put in another good dent in Logosphere. Almost 200 pieces done today, bringing the total close to 1950, a new record for me for one of my puzzles, breaking the previous record of 1858 set in October of 2001. I expect to complete the puzzle tomorrow morning, I have about 100 pieces to go! Cutting continues to go well.


Puzzle 835 - some sections previously cut


The rest of the puzzle - just the small section to the left remains to be cut


Puzzle 835 - Very cool special Signature Piece cut today - first time ever with printed text on the front
The piece is resting on a Signature Piece template sheet - obviously this special Signature Piece is much bigger than normal!
April 9, 2010 is the "as of" date for the list of companies in the S&P 500 Index

April 27, 2010

Tuesday 11.20 pm - Puzzle 835, Logosphere, a work of art celebrating and documenting the corporate world of logos of companies belonging to the Standard & Poor's 500 Stock Market Index as of April 9th, 2010 is done.

This puzzle is a snapshot of Corporate Logo Americana, a unique documentation effort by Custom Puzzle Craft! Already things are changing - acquisitions and mergers are in progress which will change the face of the Index, but here, with the artwork of this project, a snapshot of history has been frozen.

This jigsaw puzzle is a magnificent work. This puzzle 33 1/8" by 45 1/8", made from three boards expertly knitted together via stack cutting, appears as a seamless puzzle made from a single board! I suspect this giant puzzle, with over 2000 pieces, will be very, very challenging to put together!

Tomorrow I'll take formal pictures, count the pieces and launch the auction. Very, very few people read this journal. Just a few dozen at the most! So I'm not being particularly cautious about the pictures posted here. I'm going to be far more conservative about what I post on eBay, due to concern about posting images of registered trademarks. Some artist friends of mind say there is no problem whatsoever regarding collages. I have received some indirect legal advice to be very cautious. I view this work as a magnificent documentation and artistic effort and all companies should be proud to be included! I am going to develop some extensive documentation of this art project and will include a link within the auction announcement email sent to "auction notification members" (see 100 Puzzles Project to be included). The eBay documentation, as mentioned, is going to be very sparse.


Bringers of Energy section


Yes, there are two boards here!

April 28, 2010

Wednesday 6:12 pm - I took more photos of the magnificent Logosphere work today, then took the puzzle apart into large sections and brought it home; spent a lot of time writing up the work, and late this afternoon fully disassembled the puzzle and counted the pieces. Final piece count 2035! I still have a couple hours of pre-auction prep to do before launching the auction - and as it already is getting to be a long day, I have decided to call it a day; the auction will be launched tomorrow afternoon, for sure.

The eBay presentation will be quite sparse, as I mentioned before. I am going to have a password protected auction supplement webpage with pictures. The link and password will be sent out tomorrow to those who are on my auction notification list. If you are not on it and want to be, go to 100 Puzzles Project and click on my email address within the Join My Auction Notice List box.

Year 2016 edit: Yeah I really did this for the 70 or 80 or so on my CPC Event notification email list. The email said: Due to concerns that I have about at least one of the 500 companies getting huffy about having their logo included in this work of art, even though it is a limited edition of one, I have elected not show show detailed pictures of the puzzle on eBay. I have documented this puzzle, beyond what has appeared in my journal at http://www.custompuzzlecraft.com/Logosphere/logosphere.html - the page is password protected. Type "forbidden puzzle" all lower case with one space between the words and without the quotes, to gain access to the pictures. The page has quite a few pictures. Of course, later fully emboldened, I created a page for the puzzle and posted many pictures to the page; the logosphere link no longer works as I've deleted those pages long ago!

April 29, 2010

Thursday 4:50 pm - Auction #99 launched, at last! More later.

April 30, 2010

Friday 4:06 pm - I'm catching up on a lot of non-puzzle things today. I really need a break! Logosphere took a good six-seven weeks to do, counting all the logo research and image design work; and that followed the major work for the Carnival of Harlequin, which I had to redo after more than half of the failed first attempt was done, and this followed all of the experimental work and multiple retries to get Octastar done!

As things are turning out, I'm now in "wait mode", as the wheels are still turning with regards to obtaining the imagery for the 100th puzzle of the 100 Puzzles Project. The 100th puzzle!!!!! Already this has a nice ring to it, it's really going to happen, the completion of the project nears! But it's not going to be easy. The last puzzle will be an epic effort, perhaps unfolding starting a couple weeks from now. The puzzle is "top secret". There will be no discussion of the subject matter of the puzzle's image, nor any photos here, until it is completed and launched on eBay! I will post some notes about the involved stacking cutting to knit boards together - and I may have some backside photos. I have not yet fully worked out I'm going to do the stack cutting for this massive puzzle, this is something I could work out before I receive the imagery.

For now I need a good break, certainly at least a week - except to deal with ordering even larger puzzle boxes as big ones I ordered last fall are not big enough for Logosphere -and then eventually shipping Logosphere. I called my box supplier this morning, left a message, and I did not receive a callback today. So... I'll have to be more proactive on Monday.

It's great to have #99 done and launched! Already some very nice bids have been received, although not at the pace of last month's record auction! But it's still quite early.

May 3, 2010

Monday 9:20 am - This morning I ordered a few new super large puzzle boxes. They should arrive by the end of next week. Shipment of Logosphere will be delayed until the arrival of the new boxes.

May 4, 2010

Tuesday 11:08 pm - The auction has less than two days to go and is doing quite well! Thank you for the bids received so far.


Puzzle 835 - Logosphere - puzzle pieces

In order to keep some pictures off of eBay and the search engines, I mentioned earlier that I created a password protected auction supplement webpage with pictures. There has been some confusion regarding the password. Everyone who is a member of my auction notification email list had the same password, and I'm now making it public here due to the surprisingly few accesses to the auction supplement webpage. The password is "forbidden puzzle" all lower case without the quotes and with one blank space between the two words. The gateway to the page is at http://www.custompuzzlecraft.com/Logosphere/logosphere.html. Year 2016 edit - Link long deleted.

May 6, 2010

Thursday 4:15 pm - Auction #99 ends in about 30 minutes! I didn't mean to jinx the markets, they have plunged in the five trading days since the auction was launched last week, with the S&P 500 down about 7%.

Thursday 5:09 pm - The auction is over and with two huge bids at the end I'm super happy with the results!! Thank you for your bids. Year 2016 edit - Actually, I was happy, but not super happy given the huge effort put into this historic puzzle - I had hoped to attract some new bidders with Wall Street connections, you know, billionaire hedge fund managers, but no new bidders showed up in the final days.

Now..... JUST ONE MORE TO GO! #100.

May 14, 2010

Friday 4:12 pm - The shipment of extra large puzzle boxes is still pending, I though they might make it today. Logosphere will ship after the boxes arrive. The boxes should be arriving next week

May 17, 2010

Monday 5:47 pm - Still waiting on the puzzle boxes, will call tomorrow for a status update.

May 18, 2010

Tuesday 11:11 pm - I called my puzzle box supplier today. The order has not shipped, couldn't get a good answer about the manufacturing status of the boxes, the shipment should have been done by now. They will call back tomorrow, Wednesday, and I'll push to move things along.

May 19, 2010

Wednesday 4:52 pm - The puzzle box company did not call back as promised today, I'll call them again tomorrow.

May 22, 2010

Saturday 5:06 pm - The puzzle boxes were shipped out the manufacturer's door on Friday, they should arrive here by the end of next week.

June 2, 2010

Wednesday 6:23 pm - Things have been delayed as I recover from sinus surgery as well as catch up on non-puzzle things. Also, I have been distracted by the fascinating yet horrific deep sea events in the Gulf of Mexico as well as horrified by the ecological disaster on the surface.


Jaws
On June 1, 2010, a giant claw tried to cut these pipes, 5000 feet below the surface of the sea
BP then gave up and cut the smaller pipes with circular saws guided by remotely operated robots
BP then brought Jaws back and successfully snipped the fattest pipe, moving the end-of-pipe gushing leak to this location

The puzzle boxes still haven't arrived, I'll call Friend Box tomorrow to find out what is going on.

June 12, 2010

Saturday 5:00 pm - The long delayed shipment of puzzle boxes should be completed by this coming Monday. I expect Logosphere to ship Tuesday.

June 14, 2010

Monday 5:19 pm - The super large puzzle boxes (16" x 13" x 4.5") finally arrived today, they look excellent! Puzzle #835, Logosphere will ship tomorrow. I'm still not quite caught up on stuff, work on 100PP #100 will start on Wednesday. There should be very few interruptions during the next several weeks.

June 15, 2010

Tuesday 10:19 pm - Puzzle 835, Logosphere, finally shipped!

June 29, 2010

Tuesday 6:35 pm - Some picture links fixed on the Logosphere puzzle page at Puzzle 835. The very day the Logosphere (a puzzle of the S&P 500 Stock Market Index component corporate logos) auction ended (May 6) was the day of the "flash crash". This morning I posted Logosphere at Puzzle 835 and the stock market tanks big time. Now, what can I do to turn this thing around?


The companies of the S&P 500 as of April 9, 2010
All punctuation and abbreviations as obtained from the Securities and Exchange Commission

3M Company
Abbott Laboratories
Abercrombie & Fitch Co.
Adobe Systems Incorporated
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Aetna Inc.
Aflac Incorporated
Agilent Technologies, Inc.
Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.
Airgas, Inc.
AK Steel Holding Corporation
Akamai Technologies, Inc.
Alcoa Inc.
Allegheny Energy, Inc.
Allegheny Technologies Incorporated
Allergan, Inc.
Altera Corporation
Altria Group, Inc.
Amazon.com, Inc.
Ameren Corporation
American Electric Power Company, Inc.
American Express Company
American International Group, Inc.
American Tower Corporation
Ameriprise Financial Inc.
AmerisourceBergen Corporation
Amgen Inc.
Amphenol Corporation
Anadarko Petroleum Corporation
Analog Devices, Inc.
Aon Corporation
Apache Corporation
Apartment Investment and Management Company
Apollo Group, Inc.
Apple Inc.
Applied Materials, Inc.
Archer-Daniels-Midland Company
Assurant, Inc.
AT&T Inc.
Autodesk, Inc.
Automatic Data Processing Inc.
AutoNation, Inc.
AutoZone, Inc.
AvalonBay Communities, Inc.
Avery Dennison Corporation
Avon Products, Inc.
Baker Hughes Incorporated
Ball Corporation
Bank of America Corporation
Baxter International Inc.
BB&T Corporation
Becton, Dickinson and Company
Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.
Bemis Company, Inc.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Best Buy Co., Inc.
Big Lots, Inc.
Biogen Idec Inc.
BJ Services Company
BMC Software, Inc.
Boston Properties, Inc.
Boston Scientific Corporation
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
Broadcom Corporation
Brown-Forman Corporation
C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc, Inc.
C.R. Bard, Inc.
CA, Inc.
Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation
Cameron International Corporation
Campbell Soup Company
Capital One Financial Corporation
Cardinal Health, Inc.
CareFusion Corporation
Carnival Corporation
Caterpillar Inc.
CB Richard Ellis Group, Inc.
CBS Corporation
Celgene Corporation
Centerpoint Energy, Inc.
Centurytel, Inc.
Cephalon, Inc.
CF Industries Holdings, Inc.
Chesapeake Energy Corp
Chevron Corporation
CIGNA Corporation
Cincinnati Financial Corporation
Cintas Corporation
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Citigroup Inc.
Citrix Systems, Inc.
Cliffs Natural Resources Inc.
CME Group Inc.
CMS Energy Corporation
Coach, Inc.
Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc.
Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation
Colgate-Palmolive Company
Comcast Corporation
Comerica Incorporated
Computer Sciences Corporation
Compuware Corporation
ConAgra Foods, Inc.
ConocoPhillips
CONSOL Energy Inc.
Consolidated Edison, Inc.
Constellation Brands, Inc.
Constellation Energy Group, Inc.
Corning Incorporated
Costco Wholesale Corporation
Coventry Health Care, Inc.
CSX Corporation
Cummins Inc.
CVS Caremark Corporation
D.R. Horton, Inc.
Danaher Corporation
Darden Restaurants, Inc.
Davita Inc.
Dean Foods Company
Deere & Company
Dell Inc.
Denbury Resources Inc.
DENTSPLY International Inc
Devon Energy Corporation
DeVry Inc.
Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc.
Discover Financial Services
Discovery Communications, Inc.
Dominion Resources, Inc.
Dover Corporation
Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc.
DTE Energy Company
Duke Energy Corporation
E*TRADE Financial Corporation
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
Eastman Chemical Company
Eastman Kodak Company
Eaton Corporation
eBay Inc.
Ecolab Inc.
Edison International
El Paso Corporation
Electronic Arts Inc.
Eli Lilly and Company
EMC Corporation
Emerson Electric Co.
Entergy Corporporation
EOG Resources, Inc.
EQT Corporation
Equifax Inc.
Equity Residential
Exelon Corporation
Expedia, Inc.
Expeditors International of Washington, Inc.
Express Scripts, Inc.
Exxon Mobil Corporation
Family Dollar Stores, Inc.
Fastenal Company
Federated Investors Inc, Inc.
FedEx Corporation
Fidelity National Information Services, Inc.
Fifth Third Bancorp
First Horizon National Corporation
First Solar, Inc.
FirstEnergy Corp.
Fiserv, Inc.
FLIR Systems, Inc.
Flowserve Corporation
Fluor Corporation
FMC Corporation
FMC Technologies, Inc.
Ford Motor Company
Forest Laboratories, Inc.
Fortune Brands, Inc.
FPL Group, Inc.
Franklin Resources, Inc.
Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.
Frontier Communications Corporation
GameStop Corp.
Gannett Co., Inc.
General Dynamics Corporation
General Electric Company
General Mills, Inc.
Genuine Parts Company
Genworth Financial, Inc.
Genzyme Corporation
Gilead Sciences, Inc.
Goodrich Corporation
Google Inc.
H&R Block, Inc.
H. J. Heinz Company
Halliburton Company
Harley-Davidson, Inc.
Harman International Industries, Incorporated
Harris Corporation
Hasbro, Inc.
HCP, Inc.
Health Care REIT, Inc.
Helmerich & Payne, Inc.
Hess Corporation
Hewlett-Packard Company
Honeywell International Inc.
Hormel Foods Corporation
Hospira, Inc.
Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc.
Hudson City Bancorp, Inc.
Humana Inc.
Huntington Bancshares Incorporated
Illinois Tool Works Inc.
Integrys Energy Group, Inc.
Intel Corporation
IntercontinentalExchange, Inc.
International Business Machines Corporation
International Flavors & Fragrances Inc
International Game Technology
International Paper Company
Intuit Inc.
Intuitive Surgical, Inc.
Invesco Ltd.
Iron Mountain Incorporated
ITT Corporation
J. C. Penney Company, Inc.
Jabil Circuit, Inc.
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.
Janus Capital Group Inc.
JDS Uniphase Corporation
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson Controls, Inc.
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Juniper Networks Inc, Inc.
Kellogg Company
KeyCorp
Kimberly-Clark Corporation
Kimco Realty Corporation
King Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
KLA-Tencor Corporation
Kohl's Corporation
Kraft Foods Inc.
L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc.
Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings
Legg Mason, Inc.
Leggett & Platt, Incorporated
Lennar Corporation
Leucadia National Corporation
Lexmark International, Inc.
Life Technologies Corporation
Limited Brands, Inc.
Lincoln National Corporation
Linear Technology Corporation
Lockheed Martin Corporation
Loews Corporation
Lorillard, Inc.
Lowe's Companies, Inc.
LSI Corporation
M&T Bank Corporation
MACY'S, INC.
Marathon Oil Corporation
Marriott International, Inc.
Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc.
Marshall & Ilsley Corporation
Masco Corporation
Massey Energy Company
MasterCard Incorporated
Mattel, Inc.
McAfee, Inc.
McCormick & Company, Incorporated
McDonald's Corporation
McKesson Corporation
Mead Johnson Nutrition Company
MeadWestvaco Corporation
Medco Health Solutions, Inc.
Medtronic, Inc.
MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc.
Merck & Co., Inc.
Meredith Corporation
Metlife, Inc.
MetroPCS Communications, Inc.
Microchip Technology Incorporated
Micron Technology, Inc.
Microsoft Corporation
Millipore Corporation
Molex Incorporated
Molson Coors Brewing Company
Monsanto Company
Monster Worldwide, Inc.
Moody's Corporation
Morgan Stanley
Motorola, Inc.
Murphy Oil Corporation
Mylan Inc.
Nabors Industries Ltd.
National Oilwell Varco, Inc.
National Semiconductor Corporation
NetApp, Inc.
Newell Rubbermaid Inc.
Newmont Mining Corporation
News Corporation
Nicor Inc.
NIKE, Inc.
NiSource Inc.
Noble Energy, Inc.
Nordstrom, Inc.
Norfolk Southern Corporation
Northeast Utilities
Northern Trust Corporation
Northrop Grumman Corporation
Novell, Inc.
Novellus Systems, Inc.
NRG Energy, Inc.
Nucor Corporation
NVIDIA Corporation
NYSE Euronext
O'Reilly Automotive, Inc.
Occidental Petroleum Corporation
Office Depot, Inc.
Omnicom Group Inc.
ONEOK, Inc.
Oracle Corporation
Owens-Illinois, Inc.
PACCAR Inc
Pactiv Corporation
Pall Corporation
Parker-Hannifin Corporation
Patterson Companies, Inc.
Paychex, Inc.
Peabody Energy Corporation
People's United Financial, Inc.
Pepco Holdings, Inc.
PepsiCo, Inc.
PerkinElmer, Inc.
Pfizer Inc.
PG&E Corporation
Philip Morris International Inc.
Pinnacle West Capital Corporation
Pioneer Natural Resources Company
Pitney Bowes Inc.
Plum Creek Timber Company, Inc.
Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation
PPG Industries, Inc.
PPL Corporation
Praxair, Inc.
Precision Castparts Corp.
priceline.com Incorporated
Principal Financial Group, Inc.
Progress Energy, Inc.
ProLogis
Prudential Financial, Inc.
Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated
Public Storage
Pulte Homes, Inc.
QLogic Corporation
QUALCOMM Incorporated
Quanta Services, Inc.
Quest Diagnostics Incorporated
Questar Corporation
Qwest Communications International Inc.
R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company
RadioShack Corporation
Range Resources Corporation
Raytheon Company
Red Hat, Inc.
Regions Financial Corporation
Republic Services, Inc.
Reynolds American Inc.
Robert Half International Inc.
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Rockwell Collins, Inc.
Roper Industries, Inc.
Ross Stores, Inc.
Rowan Companies, Inc.
Ryder System, Inc.
Safeway Inc.
SAIC, Inc.
salesforce.com, inc.
SanDisk Corporation
Sara Lee Corporation
SCANA Corporation
Schlumberger Limited
Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc.
Sealed Air Corporation
Sears Holdings Corporation
Sempra Energy
Sigma-Aldrich Corporation
Simon Property Group, Inc.
SLM Corporation
Smith International, Inc.
Snap-on Incorporated
Southwest Airlines Co.
Southwestern Energy Company
Spectra Energy Corp
Sprint Nextel Corporation
St. Jude Medical, Inc.
Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.
Staples, Inc.
Starbucks Corporation
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.
State Street Corporation
Stericycle, Inc.
Stryker Corporation
Sunoco, Inc.
SunTrust Banks, Inc.
SUPERVALU INC.
Symantec Corporation
Sysco Corporation
T. Rowe Price Group, Inc.
Target Corporation
TECO Energy, Inc
Tellabs, Inc.
Tenet Healthcare Corporation
Teradata Corporation
Teradyne, Inc.
Tesoro Corporation
Texas Instruments Incorporated
Textron Inc.
The AES Corporation
The Allstate Corporation
The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation
The Boeing Company
The Charles Schwab Corporation
The Chubb Corporation
The Clorox Company
The Coca-Cola Company
The DIRECTV Group, Inc.
The Dow Chemical Company
The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation
The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.
The Gap, Inc.
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc.
The Hershey Company
The Home Depot, Inc.
The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc.
The J. M. Smucker Company
The Kroger Co.
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc
The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.
The New York Times Company
The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc.
The Procter & Gamble Company
The Progressive Corporation
The Sherwin-Williams Company
The Southern Company
The TJX Companies, Inc.
The Travelers Companies, Inc.
The Walt Disney Company
The Washington Post Company
The Western Union Company
The Williams Companies, Inc.
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.
Tiffany & Co.
Time Warner Cable Inc.
Time Warner Inc.
Titanium Metals Corporation
Torchmark Corporation
Total System Services, Inc.
Tyson Foods, Inc.
U.S. Bancorp
Union Pacific Corporation
United Parcel Service Inc.
United States Steel Corporation
United Technologies Corporation
UnitedHealth Group, Inc.
Unum Group
Urban Outfitters, Inc.
V.F. Corporation
Valero Energy Corporation
Varian Medical Systems, Inc.
Ventas, Inc.
VeriSign, Inc,
Verizon Communications Inc.
Viacom Inc.
Visa Inc.
Vornado Realty Trust
Vulcan Materials Company
W.W. Grainger, Inc.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Walgreen Co.
Waste Management, Inc.
Waters Corporation
Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
WellPoint, Inc.
Wells Fargo & Company
Western Digital Corporation
Weyerhaeuser Company
Whirlpool Corporation
Whole Foods Market, Inc.
Windstream Corporation
Wisconsin Energy Corporation
Wyndham Worldwide Corporation
Wynn Resorts, Limited
Xcel Energy Inc.
Xerox Corporation
Xilinx, Inc.
XL Capital Ltd
XTO Energy Inc.
Yahoo! Inc.
YUM! Brands, Inc.
Zimmer Holdings, Inc.
Zions Bancorporation


From the auction description:

99

This is the 99th Custom Puzzle Craft wooden jigsaw puzzle to be offered in my ongoing 100 Puzzles Project of almost-monthly auctions.

Logosphere
An original work by John Stokes
33 1/8" x 45 1/8"
Long Round style, 2035 pieces

This month's auction features the largest interlocking jigsaw puzzle I've ever made and with the most pieces!


Logosphere - Signature piece

Logosphere, is a work of art celebrating and documenting the corporate world of logos of companies belonging to the Standard & Poor's 500 Stock Market Index as of April 9th, 2010. This puzzle is a snapshot of the continually changing land scape of corporate logo Americana, frozen in time. I've had a long time interest in the stock market, and I've been wanting to do a "stock market" puzzle since the very early days of Custom Puzzle Craft. I found creating this work to be a highly satisfying endeavor. All 500 Logos were included. As a theme for a work of art, little attention is given to the world of Logos, yet they surround us in our cities and towns where commerce take place, and in our homes where we use and consume the product made by many of these companies.

Logosphere is a magnificent work.


Logosphere is in the shape of this $ sign.

In order to fit all 500 Logos of the S&P 500 companies into the $ sign shape, while presenting the logos in a nice size, the puzzle had to be huge! The source document, at 400dpi, measured 13800 by 18158 pixels.

I used 5-ply Appleply wood, with the imagery printed in three strips on Ilford Gallerie "Professional Inkjet Photo Range" Smooth Pearl Paper on a 24" wide Epson 7600 printer using archival Ultrachrome inks. The prints were glue mounted via a 3" sponge roller using Elmer's white glue mixed with a much smaller percentage of Elmer's wood glue. The prints were mounted on three boards. Each of these boards would normally be a very large puzzle! The board sizes were 17 1/8" by 31 5/8", 19 1/4" by 34 1/2" and 22 11/16" by 34 1/4" for the three horizontal strips which made up the image from top to bottom. There was substantial overlap so I could do the required stack cutting. After mounting, the prints were sprayed with two passes of Krylon Fixativ and then two passes of Krylon Acrylic Clear. The puzzle was cut on a 18" Hegner Scroll Saw, with the larger initial cuts on a 22" Hegner except about 3"of the longest initial cut which had to be done on my 30" Excalibur. Cutting went extremely well. I did encounter several "non-catastrophic" voids in the 2nd and 4th plies, these I repaired as I went along, there is absolutely no indication of this work when viewed from the front.


Two boards joined together via stack cutting - view of the back
Long Round cutting style

This huge puzzle, 33 1/8" by 45 1/8", made from three boards expertly knitted together via stack cutting, appears as a seamless puzzle made from a single board when viewed from the front!

This puzzle contains 2035 pieces! And the pieces are my regular size, about two pieces per square inch. Normally my project puzzles, when cut in my Long Round cutting style have about three pieces per square inch. So, even though the pieces are larger than normal, this puzzle still contains the most pieces I've ever cut for one puzzle! The edges are almost 100 % direct interlocking. There are no figurals and there is no color line cutting, except just a very tiny bit of micro color line cutting in a few cases to "capture" something or another.

The Logos were placed on a white background and were oriented "right side up" with no rotation. The puzzle was cut in a way so there are very, very few pieces which are "all white". Still, due the vast number of pieces, this puzzle should be extremely challenging to put together. This is the "big one" as far as my Long Round cutting style puzzles go, this is the last all Long Round puzzle of the 100 Puzzle Project. With 2035 pieces this puzzle sets a new record for Custom Puzzle Craft breaking the long standing record of 1858 pieces cut for Salvador Dali's The Metamorphosis of Narcissus in October 2001.

This puzzle contains a very special Signature Piece. The signature piece is larger than usual, with information about the 99th 100 Puzzles Project puzzle on the front of the piece, the back is signed, dated and numbered per my usual practice. There is not a second piece marking the puzzle as a 100 Puzzles Project puzzle. This puzzle is a limited edition of one. I may someday create an updated version of the image for display in an art show; this is not definite.

100 Puzzles Project - Puzzles with imagery created by John Stokes (excluding Geometric Pattern Puzzles)

2000: none
2001: #14 September 11, 2001
2002: none
2003: none
2004: #39 The Puzzle Tree
2005: #41 Beads, Beads and Beads;
2006: #53 Ocean Waves at Imperial Beach, CA; #54 Imperial Beach Pier; #57 The Knob by Quissett Harbor; #59 Altocumulus Sunset, San Diego, September 2, 2006
2007: #68 Watching Time; #71 Balboa Park Sky
2008: #82 San Diego Skyline from Coronado, September 7, 2005
2009: #86 Snow Tree, #88 Colorful Thin Cloud Sunset; #94 Eucalyptus Sunrise
2010: #97 Octastar; #99 Logosphere

Note: I cut my jigsaw puzzles using a scroll saw, hand guiding the wood into the blade, this is not a laser or water jet cut puzzle. No templates was used for this puzzle, except to cut my signature piece. My puzzles cover fantasy, landscapes, my geometric patterns, famous paintings, mythology - a diverse spectrum of the human condition and more.

Special Notice: I am now in "deeper retirement" as far as making puzzles is concerned. I will continue the 100 Puzzle Project until it is completed (just one more to go!). After the 100 Puzzles project, I will accept orders using a rationing method I've discussed in my journal on my website.

Shipping cost within the U.S. via 3-Day FedEx is $14.00; via Priority Mail is $7.00. Contact me regarding international rates. I accept payment via PayPal only. California residents add 8.75% sales tax. I'll ship to anywhere in the world.


Specifications
Name
Logosphere
Artist
John S. Stokes III
Date Completed
April 27, 2010
Size
33 1/8" x 45 1/8" at the widest and tallest points
Cutting Style
# Pieces
2035 (new record)
Color Line Cutting
None
Figurals
None

© John S. Stokes III - Puzzle Crafter & Webmaster

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