Tropical Paradise - Ravensburger Jigsaw Puzzle

Born and raised in Connecticut, Alan Giana always wanted to be an artist. One of his first works of art was at the age of four when he grabbed a magic marker and proceeded to scribble on the wall with it. Needless to say his parents were not too happy, but a career was set in motion. Alan's father is an accomplished ceramic artist. Alan often watched his father apply glazes and different painting techniques to create his masterpieces. Throughout his school years Alan was always drawing and painting. He went on to college to study graphic design and business management.

With a degree in graphic design management, Alan started his own illustration and design company in the early 1990's with his wife Pamela. Through the years, Alan has worked on a variety of commercial illustration and design projects. His creations have appeared on book covers, magazines, children's games, music CDs, and have been published in several books and magazines showcasing the best in traditional airbrush and digital illustration.

The work of this master of images has won many awards, including the Pro-Comm Award of Excellence by the Business Marketing Association, the Premier Print Award by the Printing Industries of America, and the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Best Toy Award. Alan's paintings have been displayed in numerous galleries and shows around the country, including The Delaware Art Museum.

Ravensburger History

The company was founded by Otto Robert Maier with seat in Ravensburg, a town in Upper Swabia in southern Germany. He began publishing in 1883 with his first author contract. He started publishing instruction folders for craftsmen and architects, which soon acquired him a solid financial basis. His first board game appeared in 1884, named "Journey around the world".

At the turn of the 20th century, his product line broadened to include picture books, books, children’s activity books, Art Instruction manuals, non-fiction books, and reference books as well as children’s games, Happy Families and activity kits. In 1900, the Ravensburger blue triangle trademark was registered with the Imperial Patent office. As of 1912, many board and activity games had an export version that was distributed to Western Europe, the countries of the Danube Monarchy as well as Russia.

Before the First World War, Ravensburger had around 800 products. The publishing house was damaged during the Second World War and continued to produce games in the years of the reconstruction. The company focused on children's games and books and specialized books for art, architecture and hobbies, and from 1962 grew strongly. The company started to produce jigsaw puzzle games in 1964, and in the same year opened subsidiaries in Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In 1977 the company split into a book publishing arm and a game publishing arm.

Today there are approximately 1,800 available books and 850 games as well as puzzles, hobby products and CD-ROM titles at Ravensburger and its subsidiaries, which include Alea for "hobby and ardent game players" and FX Schmid for games and children's books. Ravensburger products are exported to more than fifty countries.

In September 2010, Ravensburger broke Educa's record for the world's largest jigsaw puzzle of 24,000 pieces. Ravensburger's new puzzle design by late pop artist Keith Haring titled, 'Keith Haring: Double Retrospect' breaks the Guinness Book of World Records measuring 17' × 6' built from 32,256 pieces and comes with its own dolly cart for toting.