‘I suppose every child has a world of his own — and every man, too, for the matter of that. I wonder if that’s the cause for all the misunderstanding there is in life?’ –Lewis Carroll
Mr. Kim belongs to an elite cadre of “puzzle masters” who spend their days building logical mazes and brain teasers. In more than 20 years as a professional puzzle designer, Mr. Kim has worked on everything from word, number and logic puzzles to toys. (…)
Mr. Kim defines puzzles as “problems that are fun to solve and have a right answer,” as opposed to everyday problems like traffic, which, he noted, “are not very well-designed puzzles.”
(…)He likes changing locations frequently throughout the day, moving from his office to the kitchen table, then to the library or a coffee shop. Each time he changes surroundings, he tackles the problem anew. “I often find that the amount of progress I make is proportional to the number of times I start,” he said. He’s constantly doodling and carries a 3-by-5-inch notebook to record ideas, notes and images.
He borrows ideas for puzzles from architecture, music, science and art (favorite designers include Milton Glaser and Charles and Ray Eames). Occasionally, he gets ideas from dreams. After he dreamed he was surfing on waves of color, Mr. Kim had an idea for a computer game whose goal is to stay on the red wave. (…)
He defines a good puzzle as one that gets people to look at the problem in a new or counterintuitive way.
