Tony Fisher (puzzle designer)

Tony Fisher is a British puzzle designer known for making custom rotational puzzles. Among cubing enthusiasts, he is considered a pioneer in both puzzle design and manufacturing methods. In 2016, Guinness World Records recognized him for building the largest Rubik’s Cube.

Fisher collects puzzles and designs them. He bought his first Rubik’s Cube in 1979, when it launched in the UK, and figured out his own solution. He started modifying puzzles in 1981 by joining two Rubik’s Cubes along one edge to create the Siamese cube, which is regarded as the first handmade modified rotational puzzle. In 1995, he shifted the cutting planes of a standard puzzle to make a 3x3x4 cube. Three years later, he used a similar approach to build the first fully functional 3x4x4 cuboid, which required more complex edge and corner pieces. That technique later led to 2x2x3, 2x3x4, 3x3x5, 4x4x5, and 5x5x6 puzzles. Another method, originally developed by Geert Hellings, involved rounding the center piece of a 4x4x4 cube to create extra turning layers for uniform 2x2x4 and 6x6x6 puzzles, as well as a non-uniform 2x2x6. Fisher adapted this idea to create a giant 2x2x6 with square, proportional cubies.

In 2008, after the V-Cube 6 went into production, Fisher began working on fully functional 5x5x6 or 5x6x6 cuboids. He finished the world’s first fully functional 5x5x6 cuboid in June 2009, modifying the internal V-Cube 6 by partially rounding some layers and covering the moving core with 15mm cubies. He abandoned the 5x6x6 idea because the corner stalks on the 5x5x6 were already fractional in thickness. Fisher’s Golden Cubes, originally planned as the Millennium Cube, went into production in the early 2000s. Made by modifying the Skewb, they are the first rotational puzzles with a single color scheme, requiring solvers to restore the shape without color cues. The Golden Cube is considered his most unusual puzzle design and has been mass-produced by Uwe Meffert.

Later puzzles include the overlapping cube and ball in a cube, which used a modified Eastsheen 4x4x4 mechanism. In 2007, he created the Hexaminx, a cubic version of the Megaminx, using polyurethane resins to make tiny extensions as one solid piece. Since 1981, Fisher has designed and built about 100 puzzles based on various mechanisms. Besides puzzle making, he has worked as an archaeologist for Suffolk County Council.