Domino began life as an ordinary 28-piece set that Lily Hevesh started playing with at age 9. She loved the thrill of lining up dominoes in straight or curved lines, then flicking them to see them fall one by one.
She still does, but now she creates mind-blowing domino art for movies, TV shows and events. She’s worked on projects involving more than 300,000 dominoes, including 3-D structures like towers and pyramids. And she’s set a Guinness World Record for a circular domino arrangement—76,017 pieces!
When Hevesh plans out a new creation, she considers its purpose or theme. Then, she brainstorms images or words that could be represented by the setup. Finally, she calculates how many dominoes of each color she’ll need, so she doesn’t run out of any part of her design during the building process.
The most critical ingredient in a domino layout is the law of gravity. As the first domino falls, it converts some of its potential energy into kinetic energy—the energy of motion. A portion of this energy is transmitted to the next domino, which gives it the push it needs to knock it over. And so on, forming a chain reaction that continues until the last domino topples.
Domino has been featured in numerous comic book stories, ranging from a runaway heist to the destruction of a mutant island paradise. She rejoined X-Force after M-Day, and was eventually possessed by the Undying alien Aentaeros, who wanted to use her for a techno-organic world engine. After a battle with Cable, Aentaeros was forced to release Domino, and she returned to her freelance mercenary work.
Hevesh’s creations require a lot of planning and time, but she doesn’t consider any of them to be “have to’s” or “get to’s.” She simply picks a domino that will contribute positively to the bigger goal and then works toward it. She likens this to finding a coach to help you achieve your goals and believe in you.
Domino’s leadership change was a major factor in its decline. After the company’s founder passed away, the company struggled to find a replacement. They were also in a period of financial turmoil, and their efforts to expand beyond pizza were met with little success. By 2004, Domino’s was more than $943 million in debt and losing money at a rate of almost $700 per store every year. Something needed to be done quickly.