Wyna Liu: Puzzle Author and Jewelry Maker

This transcript was made in part by an automated service. In some cases it may contain errors. 

Wyna: [00:00:00] What’s really cool is, you know, you have like a group chat or whatever, you share your scores, and it does become this sort of like thing that you do with people, even if you are actually doing them by yourself.

Josh: Welcome to Design Tangents, a podcast from Coolhunting, exploring the creative processes and inspirations that drive changemakers. I’m Josh Rubin. And I’m Evan Ornstein. Evan, did you

Evan: play Connections today? I did play Connections today, and I felt it was easier than most days for me. How was it for you?

Josh: Uh, uh, yeah, it was, it was pretty good though.

I didn’t purple until the end and my goal is to purple early.

Evan: Yeah, one of my favorite things is we get up in the morning and we play these games that are all DR Times games. Connections, Wordle, Mini Crossword, all that. And what’s that, what’s the other one? Strands. Strands. Sometimes I really don’t like.

Strands is a sometimes. Yeah, I, I [00:01:00] fight with, fight with strands a lot. And not only do we do that and we’re a little competitive with each other, but we have many groups of friends that we play the games with. And then We even have an automated thing on the iPhone, so when you do a score, you just hit send to game

Josh: results.

I found a really good use for shortcuts on the iPhone and wrote a script to be able to blast out our scores to all of our different little score tracking, game playing friends.

Evan: And what’s exciting about today Well, yes. and today’s guest, not just our performance Oh,

Josh: I thought

Evan: you

Josh: were going to say because you whirled and won today.

Evan: I did Wordle in one today. Why did you, how did you Wordle in, how did you do that, Evan? Because I knew your start word. And so, I guess that’s a form of cheating, but I mean, I knew your start word, so what was I going to do, not play today?

Josh: my tiles and

Evan: saw

Josh: where

Evan: I was green and all that, it was a leg up. And my selection, I don’t know if it was the only one, it was the right one.

So, there was some skill involved. Yes, there’s always some skill involved. [00:02:00] I only really had to pick two letters. We digress. Yes. What’s exciting about today? And one of the reasons why we’re talking about puzzles so much is we have someone who we’ve briefly met in person but feel like we know a lot about based on the torture and sometimes bliss that she has created for us.

Her name is Winna Lou and she is a puzzle editor and creator and helps mix those puzzles for the New York Times.

Josh: And also a jeweler and a sculptor and a fellow alum of ITP. I’m excited for this episode. Me too.

Evan: Winna, you mentioned as we were, and this is the first time we’ve spoken, but when we were emailing back and forth a little bit, you’d mentioned you’d never been on a podcast before. Is that accurate?

Wyna: That was accurate at the time of writing, but since then I have been on one podcast.

Evan: Okay. All right. So [00:03:00] still almost a newbie.

Yeah. Which is great.

Josh: We feel like we’re the only people that look at bylines. And of course with, you know, we look at as media people, we look at bylines for what we’re reading. We look at byline, anywhere there’s a byline, we look at bylines. We, you know, interested in who is writing or creating or making the stuff.

And it’s been a while now where there are times where we’ve, because your byline has, you know, isn’t on every single puzzle. Um, or at least maybe a while ago it wasn’t on every single puzzle. I feel like it is certainly a connection. Um, but we’d be like, whoever opened the puzzle first, be like, uh, it’s a win a day.

And

Wyna: thank you. Yeah,

Josh: yeah, yeah. It’s uh, there’s so many, so many questions, so many questions. I, but before we get into puzzles, I think. Just a little bit of background, um, I’d love to hear about how you came to What kind of tortured childhood did

Evan: you have? [00:04:00]

Wyna: Well, first, I’d like to say that, um, in your intro, I really loved the use of purple as a verb.

That was very, very nice. And also, congratulations on Wordle in One. I think that’s very exciting. And also It’s my third. Wow! That’s incredible. Um, and I don’t think there’s anything as such thing as cheating. So that’s that’s that’s good. But I’m going

Evan: to use that, Josh, when you suggest

Josh: that I’ve had you’re going to take that audio clip.

And every time I call you out, you’re just going to play it.

Wyna: So I think you can thank my think or whatever. My mother. For, um, uh, introducing me to puzzles at a young age, um, in sort of retrospect, this is, like, extremely obvious that, like, uh, it was a formative time. My mom bought me these collections of games magazine, uh, like, these, like, games magazine anthologies when I was, when I was a little kid, and I, um, didn’t know how to solve any of the puzzles.

They were way too hard for me, but I would just, like, I was, like, obsessed with, like, Looking through them and just like looking at like, you know, the puzzles that [00:05:00] had images and just like reading the directions for the puzzles and like reading the clues and reading the answers and like, you know, some of the picture puzzles, I could like solve those, but like a lot of the word puzzles, you know, the grid based puzzles, I had no idea, but I just like really loved those books and didn’t really think about them for a number of years later until I was in my twenties.

And then I started solving the New York Times crossword and I got like really into it. I got super into it. In retrospect, it was

Josh: very, there’s a direct line. How do you make the leap from being excited about consuming puzzles to creating puzzles? Yeah,

Wyna: there is a, I think some overlap between like making puzzles and like solving puzzles.

Like making puzzles is kind of like a puzzle itself. So, um, for me, it was when I started going to crossword tournaments and meeting. It, it sounds more like I. Cause

Evan: you were so into it, you went to the tournament.

Wyna: Yeah, exactly. And, and it’s like, I, I, I competed in the loosest sense of the word, like, like not, like not a real competitor, but just, you know, I [00:06:00] participated, I would say in, in the, in the tournaments.

Um, but there’s like where you just like meet other people that think it’s really fun to go to a crossword tournament. Um, so you meet like other people in the crossword community and, you know, that includes a lot of people that make puzzles, edit puzzles, things like that. And so, um, that was, I think really when I started being like, oh, like.

These are like people, these are cool people that make the puzzles and it sort of became an idea like it just, it even occurred to me that like, oh, this is like something that,

Josh: you know, that people do. It’s something that they do. At those tournaments is, is the competition time? Yeah. Is it, it’s

Wyna: Yeah, there’s like different kind of like fussy little scoring mechanisms for each tournament, but like generally it’s Uh, they’re based on time and accuracy, speed and accuracy.

Evan: Was there like a passion for English or language or any of these things as you were growing up or spelling bees, any of that stuff, or is that totally unrelated?

Wyna: I did always like, like [00:07:00] humanities and stuff when I was, when I was like in school, um, but I almost see like crossword puzzles in some way.

There’s something about a crossword and the way you. Have the crossings that give you certain like letter combinations. So you like start to recognize letter patterns like vowel consonant patterns and stuff. So it’s like there’s something about the architecture of the word. So while there are, you know, obviously the clues tell you what word there is, there is still sort of like, like a logic.

Like this sort of, you know, like a logic of words that I feel like is separate but related to English and, and, you know, writing and stuff like that.

Evan: Hmm. It’s kind of like code breaking.

Wyna: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Josh: Maybe that’s why I’m good at crosswords. And you’re not. I’m not. I suck at crosswords. Yeah. Tell me more.

I don’t know. It just, it, it, it just kind of flows. Um, cer the, the [00:08:00] mini, I haven’t, I don’t do the big one that often, but I love the mini That’s, and I, I love the, the, the timer on the mini and , you know, that stresses me the fuck out. I am, I am disappointed if it takes me more than a minute. Wow. Uh, I, yeah.

But

Evan: a lot of our groups are really competitive. There’s a lot of like 30 40 second. Yeah scores. Yeah, and I’m Somewhere between like a minute 45 and to 15. Hey, that’s which is I find humiliate the mini

Wyna: I’m also a timer hater. So like I get very very stressed out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I

Josh: think playing them daily I start to see the patterns more than the, you know, than, than, I don’t think too much about the answer.

If I have to think about the answer, I just move on to the next one and then it becomes filling the, you know, like the, the, the gaps.

Wyna: For sure, I actually think you said that much better than what I was trying to say earlier, which is just Like, yeah, it’s pattern. It’s like a pattern. It becomes a sort of intuitive thing that, like, [00:09:00] you know, of course is related to the clues, but it’s also becomes its own kind of other thing of just like recognizing patterns and patterns of letters and words.

I

Evan: feel like that works. Like, I’m really good at Wordle because I understand the construction and I, you know, I speak French and English and I studied Japanese for four years. I see the construction more than I see the words. Right, right, right. And that’s not the case. I get hung up on the crossword because it’s always like who’s the whatever character in some movie I didn’t see or some show I’ve never heard of or book I didn’t read.

And I’m like, I have fucking idea what that is. And so I can try and figure out if I have a letter or two, like what that name could be, but usually I don’t know. And then it takes

Josh: But you, you, you sometimes spin out on being annoyed with the questions instead of just moving on. Yes. Puzzles are not your only thing though.

You’re an artist, you’re a sculptor, you make jewelry. Which, tell us a little bit about that side of, of [00:10:00] what you do.

Wyna: Um, well, thanks for saying that. Um, I think I, I’ve always really loved making stuff. Um, and like, yeah, like in school when I was a kid, I like always loved my art classes. And when I was in college, I, you know, studied art.

Um, I always had sort of a confused relationship with, like, the, like, label of art, artist, and, and, you know, sort of like, well, you know, like, what am I trying to say? Like, why am I doing this? Like, what is this, like, what does this mean to me? Um, and I think that, like, I was always trying to, like, find the answer to that.

Um, but I, I, I knew that, like, I always just, like, liked trying to make stuff. And I think it wasn’t until I went to ITV in 2013. I, I sort of like came to the realization, I guess, that like, things can be discovered as opposed to like created or invented, right? That like, Inspiration, um, comes from like, you know, things that, you know, are like found in nature, like shapes in nature, you know, like learning about [00:11:00] those topics somehow like that resonated with the idea of like making stuff as sort of a way to like discover them for myself.

So it like it’s less about like, um, creating and

Josh: What I’m hearing sounds like you start making or creating Without necessarily knowing exactly what you want the end thing to be and that the the form kind of emerges from the process

Wyna: Yeah, like yeah, I think a lot of a lot of times for sure for sure Yeah, and and sometimes it’s like it’s just like you See something like you see like the shape of like a crystal or something and you’re like, that’s really cool You know, like I want to like I want to do that and You kind of, like, try to figure out how to do that, and you, like, I don’t know, I think a lot of the sort of, like, fun for me is just, like, learning new tools, and, like, learning new, um, like, fabrication techniques and stuff, so, um, in [00:12:00] order to, like, replicate the things that I see, that I really like, and, and I, I think that that Does kind of like it.

It, it was just always like, sort of like the process of like making stuff that like really brought me a lot of like happiness and like that, like Yeah. And excitement. So

Josh: I, I get that. You, um, you mentioned I-T-P-I-T-P is the interactive telecommunications program at NYI also, you went there, Josh went back.

I did, I did also go there. It’s a really incredible graduate program in the Tisch School of the Arts, but it’s a very techie program within the art school. How did you bring tech into this work or this, you know, this kind of, this, this focus of your, your, your work?

Wyna: Yeah, like this is, this is like a little embarrassing, but um, I feel like, like it, it does sort of like maybe speak to a little bit like the confusion that I felt of just being like, okay, I, it’s not art.

[00:13:00] The thing that I’m doing isn’t art. And so, like, I wanted to, like, ground this, like, making stuff into something. I, like, like, wanted to find some kind of way to sort of, like, you know, in part also to, like, you know, it must have some sort of practical use. If it’s not art, it must be able to, you know, do something.

So, like, let me figure out what that is. And so, Um, I was really attracted to the idea of like, I was like, I’m going to learn how to program, I’m going to learn how to code. It’s going to be great. I’m going to do this to make like interactive pieces. Um, and I got to ITP and I, you know, took the like, you know, intro, intro coding classes I’d never programmed before.

I was so bad at it and I like hated it. It was just like, I was like, oh. Oh, got it. Okay, but this isn’t, this isn’t for, I like, I like, I had no idea. I was like, oh, he’s like, I just love it conceptually. Just like, like, I just love it as a tool. But I just realized that I, it was like, not for me. It was not for your brain.

My tool. Exactly. Wasn’t my brain did not work that way at all. And so I sort of just like, yeah. instead focused on a bunch of like fabrication stuff. I used the shop a lot. I learned about digital [00:14:00] fabrication. I took really amazing, I took this like really amazing puppets class. Um, I took an amazing kinetic sculpture class, um, uh, with Danny Rosen and just like, it was just like really, really, um, it’s incredible.

I was just trying to learn tools, I guess. And, um, there I just. Realize that the thing that I wanted to do is to continue to learn how to make stuff

Evan: How did these passions and interests? You know, manifest or evolve into sustaining like, that’s what you do. That’s your work. That’s your life.

Wyna: I think I always just like throughout my life done a lot of like part time things.

I was like teaching after school, like a maker space. Um, I was doing like, I was teaching yoga. Um, I was like doing like, you know, jewelry stuff. I was like doing little like, you know, projects here and there. Um, and it really, I was like very [00:15:00] happy sort of just like kind of doing these like, like side things and kind of putting them together and stuff.

Um, but it wasn’t really until I started working, you know, at the Times. Um, also I make crossword puzzles for the New Yorker. Um, and I think that having those two, um, having those two jobs really was like, Oh, like this is, um, the sort of structure, like a lot of my life is structured around puzzles right now.

Um, and like a really like, amazing and satisfying way, um, feels more cohesive, I think, um, than when I was kind of like piecemeal, like doing things here and there and, and things really didn’t feel extremely cohesive, uh, which was also fine. But, uh, yeah. Is there

Evan: like, on the one hand, I feel like everyone’s at home nerding out doing this alone and never talking to anyone else.

The other hand, I feel like it’s like the Saturday Night Live or like comedy, you know, writer’s room. We were all in there, like throwing, tossing out ideas and talking about it. And [00:16:00] you know, what’s closer to your reality? Like, do you go to the office and sit with a bunch of puzzle makers?

Wyna: Uh, it’s just me.

So, um, I mainly work from home. So a lot of it is just like the echo chamber of my brain. And sometimes I will, I will text a friend being like, is this, is this, uh, is this a thing? Um, but, um, but yeah, no, I, I do. When I do go in the office, I really do love like the energy and stuff and I do get to bounce ideas off of other people, but generally it is just me.

Josh: Ahead of this conversation, we talked to a couple friends, listeners and asked if they had Questions.

Wyna: Okay.

Josh: And one of those questions was, how do you know when to draw the line with obscure knowledge? Right? Cause sometimes, especially in connections, things get random. We’ve seen the memes, we’ve seen like all of the [00:17:00]commentary, all the commentary.

Wyna: Yeah. I feel like my editor would be a better person to ask that too. I feel like definitely I get the feedback. So I’m just just like, once I had a category, it was like, it was like. Knight, Miller, I don’t remember, Baker or something and it was like It’s like characters from the Canterbury Tales, and then I was like, no, you can’t do that.

No, too, too much. Um, so, so sometimes that, that sometimes there is a check in place. Um, but maybe not often enough. Sorry.

Josh: Well, I mean, if it’s too easy, it’s gonna be boring, right? So there, there needs to, there, it needs to be obscure sometimes.

Wyna: What I do try Um, to, to do and, um, you know, sometimes I’ll get this feedback is if there is like a trivia category, like a, you know, sort of that is maybe more like know it or don’t that.

You know, some solvers might not be familiar with, [00:18:00] um, I’ll try not to put it in the same board as like a really hard, like, wordplay category or like with too much overlap or something so that it, you know, it isn’t too many like know it or you don’t things that it’s still hopefully solvable.

Josh: Do you do the pictogram ones too? Oh, the Like every now and then when, when Connections is, is visual or it’s, it’s, I don’t do the

Wyna: drawings. We have, we have, but you’ve, but you’ve designed those, designed those games.

Josh: Sure. Those are fun. Yeah. It’s always, it’s always fun when it’s like, Oh, it’s, it’s

Wyna: shocked to hear that.

Yeah. I do. I feel like many people, I feel like that’s a controversial take. I feel like many people did not like,

Josh: we embrace change. We love a change of pace. A little bit of variety is good. Yeah,

Evan: totally.

Wyna: Thank you.

Evan: Have you seen it. Neil Patrick Harris’s box one or box two.

Wyna: I have done box one and I have I’ve yet to [00:19:00] do box two But I have it.

Evan: We did box two this weekend.

Wyna: Oh

Evan: What do you think? It was really fun Yeah We were visiting some friends and we got it for their kids and we thought this would be a great thing to do all together Mm hmm, but it ended up that we were all of us together doing it. So three adults two kids and It took us a lot Four adults.

Four adults. Am I an adult? Yeah, you’re an adult. Four adults. Sorry. Four adults. Two kids. And um, a lot of brain power at that table and it took us a while. Some like

Josh: really serious brain power.

Wyna: Yeah. Is it way harder? Like how does it compare? Sorry. We

Josh: never did box one.

Wyna: Oh. Knew about it We were at the

Josh: bookstore looking for books for the kids that we were going to be, you know, like of this family that we were visiting for the weekend.

And they were just unpacking this box and we saw it on the counter and we’re like, Oh, what’s that? And the people in the bookstore told us about it. We weren’t familiar with it. Great. That sounds like a fun thing to bring and for us [00:20:00] all to do together. And, you know, I guess now we need to go back and do box one.

Yeah.

Wyna: Wow.

Josh: But it’s

Wyna: good. If I get stuck, I’m going to call you. Get some I’ll just

Evan: tell you, it took us There were six, six of us working on it, right? Yeah. Yeah. It took us like 20 some minutes to do. There’s a puzzle, a physical puzzle is one of the elements of it. And that

Josh: took us a really long time. A very, a very little puzzle.

It’s like a little jigsaw puzzle. And it

Wyna: was really hard. And it was really hard. It was really hard. It took a long time. It’s like, Oh, this is going to be a piece of cake. Yeah. It wasn’t.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, there were, there were, it’s, it’s quite clever.

Evan: But we love the, the way it, you know, it has a bunch of physical challenges, um, puzzles and games and all kinds of things.

It has a pictogram puzzle as part of it. And it also, uh, you go online with it. So there’s a chat bot, there’s videos, and I think that the integration of that, that the physical play with the [00:21:00] box and then the online play, the way that connects between the physical play and the digital play. Makes it really interesting.

Yeah unique. Yeah, and I think it helps the overall design of the experience. Yeah, for sure really successful No,

Wyna: totally. I felt the same way about about box one, which I actually just did like like a few weeks ago Beautifully designed the story is fun and just like the whole integration of like all the different parts is really like successful It’s really yeah, really?

Yeah, very fun. Very fun.

Josh: Do you think about? Designing games, right? Because you you edit games.

Wyna: Yeah,

Josh: or or or you you create games within an existing construct Have you thought about creating new constructs for games?

Wyna: Yeah, I um Newly, I would say, uh, it’s very new to me. Um, but a friend of mine, um, a good friend of mine from high school um is uh, like, uh also makes puzzles and um, [00:22:00] He has a diner and was like, we should do a puzzle night at the diner.

And it’s like, that sounds great. What’s a puzzle night? And so we had to kind of figure out what, what a puzzle night was going to be. Um, and so we ended up, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve run it a few times now, um, with different puzzles, but yeah, we, we essentially just like wrote a suite of, um, puzzles that we sort of describe as like, like an escape room at the table.

Where, like, there’s, like, kind of site specific stuff. There’s, like, stuff around, and, you know, around the thing, but, like, you don’t actually have to, like, get up and, and move, so there’s, like, a placemat with, like, stuff on it, and, you know, there’s, like, stuff on the table, and, and things like that, and so, and, like, part of the, um, part of, like, the, The solve is like figuring out where the puzzles are, you know, and so, um, yeah, like that is, um, that’s sort of a new, a new thing for me.

And it’s, it’s super fun just thinking like, oh, like where can we put puzzles? And so we’re working on the third one right now. [00:23:00]

Josh: Now is a good time to throw to break. We should have done that a bit. We should have done that a bit ago. Yeah, we’ll, we’ll go to break now. Do you look at the world different now that you’re so immersed in puzzles?

Or maybe, I mean, it sounds like you’ve, you’ve You had a deep immersion in puzzles for a while and then maybe a little bit of space from it and now you’re back in it, but does it change how you look at your surroundings?

Wyna: I think that for a while, when I started making connections, I was like always like, you know, looking around and trying to be like, oh, there’s, there’s like stuff everywhere.

Um, and then at some point I think I like stopped doing that and I was just like, I can’t, like, I don’t, I need to see things normally. And, and this is like true for like people I know like in the, in the crossword world. You’ll see something like on the side of a bus or like you’ll hear someone like, you know, say, say a phrase and then some of my [00:24:00] friends can count instantly and be like, Whatever that phrase was 15 letters because like a normal daily crossword is 15 by 15 And so like you can if you find there’s like 15 letter phrases They could like you can make a grid around like a marquee answer that like fits the grid So it’s like there’s definitely like a puzzle brain that it’s sort of like sees sees stuff everywhere So like I’m definitely like not Not impervious to it.

I think you know if I see something I’ll be like, oh that could be a that could be a category That could be like a something to put in a crossword.

Evan: I do think that’s a real thing though You gain a specific sensibility based on your knowledge and experience and exposure over time makes your brain able to just kind of call things out.

And that happens to us all the time. You know, people think Guantanamo, you see all this stuff. We go to a lot of trade shows. There’s a lot of density. And what happens over time is you go to enough trade shows and maybe that’s a design show or furniture show or an art [00:25:00] show or. Uh, you know, a houseware show, whatever it is, and you’re looking at the hundredth candle you’ve seen that day, not candle brand, but it’s different than the other ones you’ve seen, right?

There’s something about it. That’s just like, Oh, this doesn’t, it steps out of that. And it kind of makes itself, I always say there’s like a halo around it

Wyna: and

Evan: it happens really quickly. So I do believe there’s something about training. You know, between your brain and your eyes, when something stands out, over time, within your field of expertise, you, it, it does seem like it’s kind of magical, right?

It just kind of appears to you in a way that doesn’t happen to other people.

Wyna: I like that explanation a lot. Yeah, yeah, I, I think that like that sort of matches a little bit of the trajectory that as I was just saying it before, I was like, why did that happen? Like, why in the beginning was everything, you know, this one thing and then it happens like so much less frequently now.

Um, and I sort of didn’t know the answer as I was saying it, and I think that maybe what you’re saying is just like, [00:26:00] you sort of like digest the things that you, you know, things that, the in, inputs or whatever, differently, you know, over time, than after a while, the things that do kind of emerge. Do you have those halos?

Right. Become

Evan: kind of obvious to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And wouldn’t be obvious to me.

Wyna: Mm hmm.

Evan: The same thing.

Wyna: Or wouldn’t have been obvious, like. At the beginning, you know, before you have, you know, those, you know, clocked those hours or whatever, have that experience.

Josh: Are there separate parts of your brain focus on making jewelry and sculpture and art from puzzles or is there, is there overlap?

Do you think about one when you’re doing the other?

Wyna: I think that they’re the same part of my brain. I think it’s really like the same. It’s really similar. I think that like. Um, I’m not sure to, like, the total extent that this is true, but, like, it’s, like, almost medium agnostic, where you just want to do a thing, and there are lots of different ways to do the thing, and it depends on the thing that you want to do, um, and, like, sometimes that’s puzzles, and sometimes it’s, like, [00:27:00] like a thing that you have in your mind of, like, whatever, and, like, I love, like, taking classes, too, so it’s just, like, you take classes to, like, learn about new tools and new processes, and then you just, like, use those as a container to like, Oh, what do I want to make with that?

Josh: Can you describe your jewelry and your sculpture?

Wyna: I’m really, I really like geometric shapes. I really like, uh, I think that when I was Growing up, or like when I was like in school, I, um, in a way that like sort of doesn’t make sense to me now, but, you know, like the sort of like logic I had then was like, I’m a, like I’m an, like I’m an English person, like I’m like, like, you know, I like, I like humanities, I like art, like I’m, you know, I like art, I don’t understand math and science, I don’t like those subjects, I don’t understand them, they’re not for me, I like this other stuff.

Um, and really, sort of like, and this sort of, [00:28:00] a lot of it happened at ITP, um, I was just like, reading more about like, structures in nature, and just like, and just like reading about like, geometry and stuff, and that’s when I was like, oh, like, this is the same thing, you know, it’s like, and science and math are the same thing, there’s like no line between them, and in fact, like, this stuff, That I saw, it was so inspiring and beautiful to just like see these shapes, um, and like complexity of things in nature around us and like beauty of that kind of broken down into these like cellular components.

I think that’s where I started becoming very into like organic forms, but also just like the geometry of organic forms, I think is a real. Uh, thing like aesthetically that I, that I like, like to [00:29:00] make.

Evan: Can you describe the ring that you’re wearing?

Wyna: Um, I think it’s sort of like a crystal y, like, structure.

It has like, sort of these like, crooked facets of like a rock. I made the original piece out of wax. You know, you use like a little like heat pen or whatever. And then, uh, you can kind of like, you cut the wax wire into little pieces and you can just like, Kind of heat them, melt them back together. Um, and so this ring was this piece that was, uh, 3d scanned.

And then I worked with a 3d modeler, um, who like we’ve made these additional geometry. So it was all thinned out. And then the, um. The part of the ring that goes around your finger was, and it’s adjustable, so you can make it bigger. Um, and yeah, so then that model was created with those, the sort of ring part of it.

And then that was 3D printed in wax and then cast. And so,

Evan: yeah. So it’s, it doesn’t, it’s not born from a [00:30:00] sketch or from you sitting with a soldering iron to get something. It’s kind of evolved physically making something that thing gets recast,

Wyna: basically. Yeah, yeah, like, like, I really, like, I think, and this is totally like an ITP thing, where, um, after I graduated ITP, and I did, I learned about, like, how to use, like, CNC, and, like, you know, do some 3D modeling, um, and 3D printer and stuff.

When I graduated, I sort of, like, swung in the opposite direction. Like, I, I, I used, um, a lathe, just a regular, like, um, uh, like, non CNC lathe for the first time, um, and, like, a manual machine, and I Loved it so much that I, like, bought myself a little, like, benchtop metal lathe. Um, which I absolutely love, and I sort of became obsessed with, like, learning how to, like, machine stuff or whatever.

Um, and, like, so I went from, like, all these sort of, like, digital processes to just, like, a totally manual one. Um, And [00:31:00] now, I love the idea of like using both, like they’re just all tools. And then in the end, print out another piece of wax, which then is cast into another like real object. Like is, is just like, I think, like really cool.

I’m so happy I sort of learned how to do that stuff.

Josh: Like looking at your work online, there’s, there are a bunch of pieces similar to what we’re, the ring that you walked in here wearing that we were just talking about. Or almost the wireframe of a crystal, right, or the, you know, these sort of crystalline structures or the outline of a crystalline structure.

There’s another set of work that you make with magnets and I was watching some of the videos of, of those pieces and super fascinating because I’ve never really seen anything like that. Talk to us about magnets.

Wyna: I, I, I’m so, I’m so, I’m so glad he asked. I, I [00:32:00] love, I was obsessed with magnets for a really long time, but it was just like, that’s another sort of example of just like, It’s not like you’re just like the thing is like, it’s not, you’re, you’re not inventing anything, right?

It’s like the magnets doing the thing, like it’s doing the thing that it does. And so it’s just like displaying it. It’s just making something that just like shows the thing that you think is cool. So I like really, that’s sort of, I think a good example of the kind of stuff that I’m interested in. Right.

Like, it’s just like. You have an idea and like, what about that space? Like, what if you just, you know, when the magnets are, it’s like just before that they, they, um, kind of connect. And here’s another, another one. It’s like, it does not make nice jewelry. I think, I think it’s like aesthetically like not nice, but it’s cool to play with.

Josh: You’re, you’re playing with how. powerful they are and how they can do their job or how far away they can be from each other and still do their job and then kind of designing [00:33:00] with that. So the piece that I’m looking at has a chain around two pulleys and at either end of the chain. are magnets and they don’t quite reach each other but they’re close enough that there’s tension in the chain and the pulley works even though there’s there it actually is in a closed loop.

Yeah. Which is a nice contrast to the base that it sits on which is a very hardy closed loop. Um, oh Evan’s taking a picture of me talking about this. No, I love it.

Wyna: Thank you. Thank you. It’s fun. It’s fun to play with, right? It’s like fun to play with that tension and be like, that’s,

Josh: yeah, that’s

Evan: really cool.

Josh, I think we should go to another break.

Josh: And when we come back, we want to talk about some future stuff.

Thinking about puzzles specifically, [00:34:00] crosswords have been around for a long time. I don’t know how long, you might know how long, but people still love them. People still play them. I don’t get the sense that they’re, uh, going anywhere. And. I mean, maybe it’s because of the New York Times app. Maybe it’s because of the way people like to play games.

But I feel like there’s, uh, this evolution of games and gameplay that we’ve seen over the last several years caters to people who might like crossword puzzles, but extends that way of thinking into other formats like Wordle or Connections or Strands. But there’s, uh a stability or a structure or a satisfaction from gameplay that for me at least it’s a, it’s a way to get going in the morning.

Like I, it’s one of the first [00:35:00] things I do in the morning is play games to get my brain working. And then it also becomes a distraction when I need one and I need a break from whatever’s going on. That’s when I, that’s actually when I play strands. Well strands is not a morning thing, but if like there’s a point in the day where I’m like, Oh, I need another game.

I need to, I need to just like get out of. whatever’s going on around me. Okay, I’ll play that one. Um, so I’m thinking about the, the, the future of games. I mean, there’s a whole other world of games that You know, are not these puzzle games, but thinking about puzzle games specifically, I don’t know, maybe the future is as simple as some new formats, but still keeping the game itself somewhat simple and straightforward.

Wyna: Yeah, I think that, like, it’s, it’s really cool that, like, games are having a moment, I think, um, and especially, like, so I, um, grew up as, you know, an only child, and so I, [00:36:00] um, I did a lot of, I did have games, like board games in the house, but like, my parents weren’t, you know, didn’t play very much, and so it, like, puzzles were very sort of well suited to doing them, doing them by yourself, and I think that what’s really cool now is that, like, lots of people do them, and even if you do them by yourself.

You still share them with your friends. You know, you have like a group chat or whatever. You share your scores and it does become the sort of thing that you do with people, even if you are actually doing them by yourself. And so I feel like that’s, um, something that’s like so lovely. It’s like so nice.

Yeah.

Josh: It’s one of the things that I love about how we play games is that sharing element. And there’s some friends who Well, if you look at our group chats, it’s just colored boxes. There are not very many words, there’s not much dialogue, but there’s still this togetherness, which is really lovely, that, that, that, that extra step of [00:37:00] sharing your, your score.

I don’t know, I feel like with some of our friends, it’s, it’s almost a little bit of a love language, which is really nice.

Evan: I’m very surprised. I just looked up the origin of the crossword puzzle. Oh. Um, did we have dates? What did you say? I

Wyna: keep, like, in my head I have 1913, but I don’t know how, like, it’s, is that too early?

Josh: Josh? No thoughts. I have no idea.

Evan: I, this is something I would have expected to have been, you know, 1700s or something. Um, you are exactly right, Winna. Whoa. Which is not surprising. The first crossword puzzle published in the New York World Newspaper on December 21st, 1913. I Well done. I’ve learned something.

Very well done. Thank you. Yeah, you knew it already, apparently. I, I, I knew it was in there somewhere. Clearly

Wyna: one across, uh, do, do you know the answer to one across for that puzzle? This I do remember.

Josh: Oh, the very first puzzle.

Wyna: Um, yes.

Josh: No,

Wyna: it was actually three letters. And the answer, the word was fun.

Josh: Fun. [00:38:00] How much time passes between when you finalize a puzzle and when it’s available for people to play?

Wyna: Right now we are about, I think like the boards I’m making now are gonna run in like three weeks. Just about three, three and a half

Josh: weeks. And do you look at the puzzles that are published each day? I imagine you, I imagine you hear from friends. Every day about the puzzles they’re playing though, uh, or do they know better?

Do they know better than to bug

Wyna: them up? No, no, no, I love it when people send me, send me scores. Um, I think, I think everyone assumes that like everyone does and so like people are like, oh, I don’t want it, but I’m like, I love it. Um, I, uh, it’s very hard for me to keep like two timelines in my head. So it’s like if I’m like, I, I don’t remember, like, three, you know what I mean, like, three weeks ago now, like, it’s just confusing, um, but I, yeah, sometimes I do hear about it if people are sufficiently mad, and the word trickles [00:39:00] down to me.

Evan: When you get your score from Connections, you see that you had two of these, and two of these, or three of these, and one of those, and those colors, but when I’m playing it, and I, I don’t know that feedback, I know I didn’t get the answer. But it doesn’t say like, oh, you’ve got three of them in this color, and it’s just the one that you’re missing.

Am I missing something? Is there a way to identify? I want to know the answer to this so badly. Let’s go, let’s, let’s, let’s find it. Right, I mean, it’s being tracked, it’s just showing it after I’ve solved the puzzle, which is not helpful.

Wyna: I’ve, I’ve tried to sort of trial and error the, you know, with like trying different things and seeing the score, um, like writing it down.

But I, I, like, it’s too confusing for my brain. And I, I, so, so, so I, I don’t actually know how to read the score, but there’s got to be a logic to it. And someone has to know. I’ll follow up.

Evan: So Winna, as we kind of wrap up here, when we started talking about wanting to have you on the podcast, [00:40:00] and something kind of clicked in my brain, I was like, Oh, I have this very small but kind of esoteric collection of first edition magazines, or, or edition number one of magazines.

And, um, one of them I brought with me. It’s been sitting here on the table upside down, and you’re like, Hey, what’s that, what’s

Wyna: that, what’s

Evan: that? Um, this magazine, Is a magazine of lists and all different kinds of categories of lists. And I was thinking you needed to see it because inspiration doesn’t just come from the present, it can also come from the past.

And I think this whole idea around having a magazine around groups of things or lists of things, um, was something that you needed to experience.

Josh: As, as one is flipping through pages, we’re looking at vintage games and totally. I think a lot of people geek out on vintage games.

Wyna: Vintage handhelds. Yeah. This is incredibly cool.

I was gonna say that’s really cool. That’s maybe a potential.

Josh: Oh, yeah. Merlin. Simon. [00:41:00] Because Simon can do these things. Yeah, because there’s a lot of ways that you can, you can fuck with people with words like that. Merlin. Right. Merlin. So you have a whole wizard.

Evan: Yeah.

Josh: Thing, but it’s not about wizards. It’s about handheld games.

So yeah, no, no, no, there’s a, there’s a lot there.

Evan: But we felt you needed to, uh, just have some time with that.

Wyna: I’m really enjoying this. This is really, really cool.

Evan: Wynette, thank you so much. This has been really, really fun. I’ve

Josh: loved this chat. I’ve loved that we’ve, I feel like we’ve really embodied the tangents.

It’s designed tangent. Yes. In this conversation. It’s been, it’s been great to bop around. More design,

Wyna: more tangents. More

Josh: design,

Evan: more

Josh: tangents. Winna’s

Evan: website is winnaloo. com. W Y N A L I U dot com. Um, and we will share that in all of our notes as

Josh: well as some [00:42:00] pictures of her amazing jewelry. Listeners, let us know what you think of this episode by leaving a review on Apple podcasts or your podcast network of choice.

Evan: And thanks to master dynamic, the official headphones of the Surround Network and to our great behind the scenes team, including our producers, Rob Schulte and Rachel Senatore at the Surround Podcast Network by Sandow Design Group.

Josh: To hear more podcasts like Design Tangents, head to surroundpodcasts. com, where you can hear shows like Clever, hosted by Amy Devers, or The Future of XYZ, with Lisa Grelnick.

Evan: We’ve actually been on both of those podcasts.

Josh: We have been on both of those podcasts. Have a listen. That might not be a coincidence that they’re the ones we mentioned.