Galison - Past to Present

The Mini-fication of Mudpuppy Puzzles

Mudpuppy’s 36 piece puzzle is a long time best seller, but these “Mini-Cubes” weren’t always so mini. The format started with a much larger box than the one that we currently have on our line. Check it out, the old cube is on the left, the new on the right: The challenge was to make the 36-piece puzzle more attractive without making too many changes to the puzzle itself. Kids loved to piece together these scenes, especially because the format is good for a child who is between the more simplistic early childhood puzzles and the harder 63 or 100 piece puzzles in our line. The solution was in the packaging.

The designers came up with a sleeker box, and the Mini-Cube Puzzle was born. The smaller size takes up less room on store shelves, which leaves space for plenty of other Mudpuppy merchandise. It’s also much easier to ship, which reduces things like our carbon footprint and your UPS bill if you order it online.

This packaging change partially inspired even more innovative designs for our puzzle packaging. The office (and the customers!) are a huge fan of the 63 Piece cylinder puzzle. Take a peek at how pretty it is below.

Can anyone see a mini-cylinder in our future?

The Perfect Wedding Gift?

Katie, one of our marketing associates (or Marketeers, as we like to call them), recently stuffed her suitcase full of Galison products and traveled down to sunny Florida for a bridal shower.  She was sweet enough to tell us how everything was received.

Galison Goes Bridal

 

Last Saturday, I brought a smattering of Galison items to use as favors for a bridal shower brunch down in Miami. My purchases included all eight variations of Recipe Notecards, including the Wayne Thiebaud Cakes and the Luis Melendez Flavors of Spain, as well as some of our new Green Line items – the Lucie Summers Writer's Notebooks and Leaf Garden Writer's Notepads. I carefully arranged the Galison treats, waited nervously for the guests and the bride to arrive...and experimented with the Color Accent function on my camera (see below!)

 

 

As soon as the shower got going, I became pretty convinced that the Galison notecards and journals were RIVALING the popularity of the extra crispy bacon, the mini chocolate croissants, and the mimosas made with freshly squeezed Florida OJ. The bridal showerers snuck their favors into their purses and did not look back. As I said goodbye to the last of the shower stragglers, I scanned the tables for leftovers to keep for myself. I mean, come on - who wouldn't mind knowing how to make Cappucino Pie or Candied Carrots Provencal? Or writing their to-do lists on eco-friendly writer’s notes so pretty, they might actually qualify as desk décor!

 

But...the tables were empty. Nothing left behind except a few crumbs and a spare sugar packet. To my relief and chagrin, everybody loved their Galison bridal shower favors and I’ve got a pretty good idea of what to buy for the wedding gift.  Lucky for me Galison products are super affordable...don't tell the happy couple!

Galison's lovely traditional Christmas cards

A customer recently wrote us:

"I was delighted to find your website, where I will be able to purchase some of your other beautiful products right from the comfort of my home.  I am on my annual search to find a "Mother and Child" aka a "Madonna" Christmas card.  I will need lots of time and luck, as they are slowly but surely not featured, as once they were." 

We were pleased that she went on to add "Your company's products are lovely, and your customer service is sincerely appreciated," but hurried to let her know that WE, Galison, produce lovely"Mother and Child" holiday cards.

It's true that our website emphasizes contemporary designs, including extremely popular holiday cards based on illustrations by Andy Warhol:    

But we also love traditional fine art, and work with museums to make museum imagery available on our everyday and holiday note cards.

For example, we used a detail of a Claude Monet oil painting to create our Red Barns in Norway cards:

When it comes to Madonna and Child images, we have Christmas cards ranging from one based on stained glass from an 11th century church,to a 15th century Sano di Pietrotempera painting, through a 19th century Austrian Madonna of the Fir Tree.

I'm sure our customer's friends and family would like any of these traditional Christmas cards from Galison's Holiday offerings!

--Susan

   

The Many Uses of a Mudpuppy Puzzle

Our multi-talented sales team is well versed in keeping Galison/Mudpuppy products flying off the shelves, but who knew they were interior designers as well!Maureen came up with a great way for turning our popular Eric Carle Floor Puzzle:

into an easy-to-make piece of art worthy of any NYC musuem...or child's room.

Here's how she did it:

I made the puzzle and glued the pieces to a piece of foam core, which you can buy at most arts/crafts stores—we got our foam board at Staples. I used elmer’s glue with an old paint brush and trimmed the sides with an xacto knife when we were done.

We used simple nails on four corners of the piece to nail into the wall to keep it simple. You don’t even see the nails and it’s not a real print or anything so we aren’t too worried about the holes in the puzzle.

Floor puzzles are great for this because they are so big, and our print quality is so good, the colors really pop.

Let us know if you have any alternate uses for any of our products! 

Galison Green Has Arrived!

Galison is proud to present a line of 100% recycled paper notebooks, notepads, memo sheets, and cards that are both environmentally friendly and really cute!

The Galison Green Collection is comprised of 4 new formats: Writer's Notebooks, Writer's Notecards, Writer's Notepads, and Writer's Notes. Each of these formats come in 4 different styles: Little Blue Birds, Lucie Summers, Leaf Garden, and Alphabet.  Click on the images for more information and save some trees!

In the next couple days, our design team will give some insight on the creation of the Galison Green line - the successes, challenges, and inspiration for what you see!

Stay tuned!