Do You Look At the Picture On the Box? Survey Says...

In the old days, many wooden jigsaw puzzles came with no picture on the box, just a tantalizing title.

(For more on jigsaw puzzle history, see Bob Armstrong's webpage here or check out Anne Williams book on jigsaw puzzles).

Traditionalist puzzlers are still a bit disdainful of looking at the picture, as though it's sort of cheating.

It's definitely a bit different experience, a little harder, a little more of a puzzle. 

On the other hand, we hear a lot of you enjoy looking at the artwork the whole time as part of what makes puzzling fun. 

Personally, we do our puzzles without the picture because most of the time we're testing new puzzles and we can't print up the labels until we've finalized the design and piece count! But even when we re-do puzzles, we find it more satisfying to put the box back on the shelf while we puzzle it all out.

So, how many of you are hard-core puzzlers who don’t use the picture?

Well in a recent customer survey (that pops up after you buy a puzzle on our website), we asked:

“Do you look at the picture on the box when doing a puzzle?”

Yes: 53%

Only When Stuck: 30%

Nope: 17%

Happy Puzzling!