It’s officially crunch time for team Tegu. Well, honestly it’s been crunch time for the past several weeks, which has been a bit of a mixed blessing. The busy-ness is a sure sign that things are moving forward, but it’s infringed on the frequency of my blog posts. So first I’d like to apologize to our faithful readers for the temporary hiatus as we scramble towards launch like a giddy dog on a hardwood floor.

I love a good box. Who doesn’t? Maybe it has to do with the fact that I’ve moved a dozen times since I left the confines of Northern California. Maybe it’s because I detest excessive waste (I believe the term we threw around in school was ‘adaptive reuse’). But really I think it’s because in the eyes of a child, a box can be anything. An adult sees a cardboard structure for conveying a product, but a child sees a treasure chest. Or a dollhouse. Or a backstop for my indoor slingshot target range that my parents never knew about. I spent so much time in and around boxes in my youth my folks probably worried about my future housing aspirations [insert sarcastic reference to Los Angeles real estate prices here].

So it should come as no surprise that I’m enjoying the process of putting together the first box for Tegu. It’s a wee bit smaller than the refrigerator box (aka flight simulator) I flew in as a kid, but the possibility for imaginative re-assignment is always present. While the overall architecture may seem simple, we designed a small feature that we hope will encourage users to share their creations with others. A stage for telling stories, if you will. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

My own graphic proof (at about 30% scale)

From 2D...

I received the box specs from our packaging vendor so I could begin to lay up the graphics for the interior and exterior. It’s an interesting puzzle to lay up 2D graphics on something that will gain a third dimension with a few folds, so to help in the process I set my printer to work, locked and loaded a fresh No. 11 in my trusty X-acto, and recalled my model making days from school.

...to 3D!

I need a hand with this box...

The result? A perfect model of what Tegu’s first package is going to look like, only smaller. (Side note- I love how everything looks cooler when it’s miniaturized- boxes, coopers, skirts, schnauzers…) Consider this a sneak peek for now, until our packaging vendors can get us a real sample. While we’re asking, I think I might see if they have any spare refrigerator boxes they can send my way- I need a new time machine.

-SoS