Branded Puzzle. Finished?

The mock marketing poster for the Big Boy Brands Puzzle.

The Brand Puzzle for my CFC II final project was finished last week. I'm pretty happy with it. I'd like to redo it and use the CNC router instead of a hand held jig saw to make it, it would look more professional then. Also, paint the logos or at least cut the paper out better and cover them with a clear epoxy.

Either way, here it is. Artist statement first. You can see the mock marketing poster above.

My First Puzzle™

Big Boy Brands Edition

Baby puzzle created with the images of American business icons
to teach toddlers the correct brands early in life to
ensure social acceptance in adulthood.

The Big Boy Brands puzzle is a reaction to the American obsession with brands. We start kids young on brands as image and culture. Gerber, Toys R’ Us, Mattel, Fisher Price, Barbie, Lego.

As we get older, our obsession with brands only grows as we move to more grown up types of brands. Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola for example. The Big Boy Brands puzzle is a reaction to the move to grown up brands from the icons of our youth.

I designed the Big Boy Brands puzzle by My First Puzzle TM with the idea of the marketing campaign behind the piece appealing to overly concerned parents. The ad campaign poster reads “Parents! Help your toddler grow up right with the Big Boy Brands puzzle from My First PuzzleTM,” and “practically ensures social acceptance in your child’s future!” No parent would not want his or her child to fit in, and the Big Boy Brands puzzle imprints popular brands and images of the older demographic on child minds, only guaranteeing the child would dress and act similarly to the rest of the majority; fitting in as a shell only. Our obsession with brands and their images creates our popular culture and dictates its course. All the Big Boy Brands puzzle does is make sure your child grows up on the same course as countless other children.
-Pete Hall

Materials:
• Birch Plywood
• ½” Dowel Rod
• Print materials (paper, ink) for logos and advertising
• Puritan Pine Wood Stain
• Wood Glue
• Super 77 Glue

Resources:
• www.walmart.com/catalog
• brands.babycatalog.com
• news.cnet.com
• Shopping, A Century of Art and Consumer Culture. Ed. Gruenberg and Hollein. Hatje Cantz Publishers, London. 2002.
• U of M Wood Shop and Fabrication Studio Tools









Thanks for reading!

Branded Baby Puzzle

I worked long and hard last night on the start of the brand baby puzzle. It was great to work with wood, I enjoy like it.


The board is fabricated from two separate pieces of wood. The base is solid and glued on top is the piece with the holes for the brand pieces.




I still have to sand the board down nice and smooth to varnish it. I've picked out a nice walnut stain for it. Should be really nice.

Thanks for reading!

Culture for Babies

I've changed my idea for my final culture project for CFC II, we've had 1.5 months to work on it, and I change my idea 5 days before it's due. I was never really to happy with my old project idea, the Norman Rockwell print appropriation one, and having wanted to work with iconic brands at first but never figuring out a good way to do that, I had stuck with Rockwell.

Well, it hit me like ton of ACME bricks yesterday (I'm ok since nothing made by ACME really does any damage). I was interested in the creation of brand cultures and how they get started, and in thinking about not getting to see my little cousins at Christmas this year, I thought of how we start kids young on brands. Gerber, Toys R' Us, Mattel, Barbie. Giving them a subconscious idea of what is good in the market, and what is good thus for them. My grand inspiration was simple puzzles for babies and todlers. The ones with trucks and dogs on them.

Baby Puzzle

I've decided to do this with iconic "grown up" brands. That's iconic in the sense of most Americans would recognize the logo quickly. I made a list of iconic brands.

Nike

McDonalds
NBC
Coca-Cola

Best Buy

Apple

I'm using their logos as puzzle pieces. Does anyone else find it funny that I labeled these 'iconic' brands? Do they really need labels?

Screen Shot of Logo Layout

Shouldn't be to terribly tough to make, wood, jigsaw, sandpaper and woodglue for the pieces and maybe screen printing for the logos. Course, I've said that before. Could be tough. Especially since I have a exam on Monday and won't be around this weekend to work on it. hmmm. Wish me luck!

Thanks for reading!