A Formula for Genius

The Problem:

In 1950 the Palmer Paint Company had a simple business goal:sell more paint to amateur artists. The problem standing intheir way? Most people don’t feel confident enough to even attempt being an amateur artist.


The Insight:

Learn from Professor da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci built up theconfidence, and abilities, of his apprentices by numberingdifferent areas of his canvases for them to complete with acorresponding paint color. Hugely reducing the difficulty ofcreating a good painting. What if we used this approach with would-be artists?


The Idea:

Paint-By-Number Kits. The commercial artist Dan Robbins inventedPaint-By-Numbers as an employee of the Palmer Paint Company. In1955 alone, over 20 million kits were sold in America. It wenton to be the mostinfluential 'genre' on Andy Warhol's work.

Source: The History of “Paint-by-Numbers”