Cold War Steve 

Since 2019, when Cold War Steve’s razor sharp political commentary in his photo montage artworks saw him soar to social media stardom with the now much lauded ‘Hellscape’, which was a comment on Brexit, his fame has gone from strength to strength. As has his puzzles. The Hellscape puzzle changed the landscape of what a puzzle could be. No thatched cottages and railway train images here, the dystopian puzzle went on to be shorted listed for a Design Museum award and is still selling well 5 years later.  

We followed up Hellscape by manufacturing his ‘Harold’ puzzle during lockdown (something we were very proud of) and now in 2024 we drop ship all of Cold War Steve’s puzzle collection which is now 11 puzzles strong. For all of his artistic merit and fame, the Cold War Steve team is small and so using our drop ship service has allowed them to hand over all the manufacturing, logistics and fulfilment headache of servicing an ever growing Twitter following of 426K people all clamouring for merch.  

We hold all the jigsaw artwork collection on file, and print on demand the puzzle and box, as and when orders come through. There is no stock languishing on the shelf, gathering dust and delaying profits.  

How it Works 

The quality of the puzzle is important for an international artist and having a planet friendly puzzle ‘made in Britain’ was important to him.  As an artist Cold War Steve was keen to have complete design control over the look and feel of the box lid design that the jigsaw came in, which we always support, and we gave him our template to design against. He chose our ‘Standard White Box’ shape to house the puzzle in, as it has that traditional chunky jigsaw box look and feel that he was after. We then created a test print and hand made one puzzle as a sample, which he then approved. He took his own photos of the puzzle product to fit in with the aesthetic of his website and social media channels for promotions. 

Added Value 

To support our client, we took photos of his jigsaw going through our factory during the production process… the boxes being made up…and especially a short video of his jigsaw being cut and dropped into their bags. This went down really well with his social followers. 

Cold War Steve is a great example of a small team that have high demand, and a completely scalable drop ship service from order to dispatch.  

Take a look at Cold War Steve on Twitter @coldwarsteve or Visit the Cold War Steve website here.