Matthew Reinhart is the paper engineer and creator of some of the ultimate amazing classic pop up books. Everyone loves pop up books and everyone loves Matthew's intricate and ingenious pop up mechanisms.
In this brilliant video, Matthew Reinhart superbly describes the amazing joy of folding and moving paper, of how to create pop up books, a magic that works for children and adults alike. I know just what he means, I share that joy!
Matthew looks behind the pages and shows you how to make pop up books and just how those amazing pop up paper mechanisms work.
Some fantastic tips for aspiring pop up paper engineers from a master of this arcane art on how to achieve the pop up wow factor!
Taking our simplest, most common material, paper, and transforming it into an unexpected surprise is something I share with Matthew. I runpop up book workshops for childrenin schools and libraries all over the UK and abroad at Children's Book Festivals. It's great fun, as literally everybody in the world loves pop up books. We make amazing pop up monsters or dinosaurs, bugs or funny animals, it's silly creative fun but so stimulating for he children. Apart from enhancing their motor skills, it hugely encourages storytelling and literacy, even maths and geometry! Children, their teachers and parents never fail to be amazed by the magic of pop up paper. That gasp of awe and amazement is totally addictive!
If you would like a fun and creative pop up workshop, please do contact me on my contact form here.
Pop Up Cards, Pop Up Books, Free Pop Up Templates and Paper Engineering on Pinterest
Pinterest is a great source for ideas and inspiration for us Paper Engineers. It's just about my favourite place to seek out new design inspiration. I have been featuring the images off this blog and adding some of the thousands of other images and designs that have been pinned to Pinterest by us pop up fanatics! If you look through the pins on my Pop Up Paper Pinterest Board you will find hundreds of brilliant free pop up card templates, pop up book designs and some wonderful origamic architecture.
I have also added some wonderful paper sculpture ideas from some true masters of the art of paper, papercraft and paper folding.
Everyone loves pop ups and this is a great source for pop up ideas for kid's craft activities at school or in the home.
I hope that this source of pop up templates, downloads and printables will help anyone with a passion for paper and pop ups, be they creative design professionals, graphic designers, budding pop up book designers, parents, teachers, students or pupils.
Have fun!
Hi Everyone! Here are two really easy free pop up card templates to make simple and fun but very easy and effective pop up faces, pop up animals or pop up monsters in just a few minutes!
The Pangea Pop Up by Educator Michael Molina and animated by the Ted-Ed Team.
I love the simple and elegant integration of sound geological science with great pop up book tecnology. Paper Engineering does seem to have a magical ability to engage with children's imaginations and learning.
I have spent the last 20 years working with children of all ages and abilites, exploring their creativity through the medium of children's picture and pop up books. There is something about pop up books that really engages with children's creativity.
I have found that they are a great medium to engage with children's creativity and learning through what feels like play. I see the most wonderful creations on my school visits and I am always delighted when a child, not normally known for their creativity, or lacking in self confidence, creates something really unexpected and amazing! I have had some fun, let me tell you!
It's well worth visiting the Ted-Ed lesson that accompanies this great pop up science book. You will learn more about the geology and have that information presented in a simple and clear fashion. I learnt a lot!
The paper engineering was created by Yevgeniya Yeretskaya, who has some more great pop up books and pop up paper card ideas, as well as more great pop up book videos on her website yaypapercuts.com
Top paper engineer, Helen Friel, incollaboration with photographer, Chris Turner and animator, Jess Deacon have created this short video depicting the water cycle using Helen's excellent pop up book designs.
Nearly a year in the making and shot in a continuous take, Revolution follows the cyclical journey of a single water droplet. So many brilliant ideas in one short film with a great message.
I love this clever use of pop up technology and paper engineering. We all love pop up books and the revelations they bring with each successive spread. There is something about the pop up that reaches into us and affects us.
Clever use of our sense of wonder and awe can really help get an idea or message home.
Helen has put together the most wonderful stop frame animation showing the making of Revolution. You can see all the stages in the creation of a pop up book and the paper engineering mechanisms behind them. Some of the very best pop up book and cards mechanisms and ideas shown here for your inspiration!
Paul Stickland Pop Up Book Workshops with the children of Fairchildes Primary School
I was lucky to share three inspiring days with the wonderful children and their great teachers in Croydon, South London.
A really outstanding and happy school led by some truly dedicated teaching and support staff.
I was invited to hold workshops with the children as part of their Pop Up Book Week by Sally Gardner, their inspired and energetic DT and Music Teacher, who had taught the children and teachers how to make every sort of pop up mechanism prior to my arrival. The result was amazing, the best primed and most capable children that I have ever worked with. It was a pure joy from start to finish.
I gave them a very simple curved fold pop up mechanism which I have devised as an easy starting point. They then took their creations in all manner of brilliant directions and the teachers joined in and had great fun too! Adults love to join in with these workshops, they are often amazed and surprised by their amazing creations!
The school was clearly the core of a very diverse community, with many of the teachers having attended the school and almost all of them having spent their entire working lives looking after, inspiring and empowering these lucky children.
Music, art and play seemed to be really important and the walls were covered with the most accomplished artwork.
I was constantly impressed by their academic achievments too, which seemed to sit very comforatbly with the really creative atmosphere that was so evident at their happy school.
I travel to many different schools all over the country and so I see and experince many different approaches. I rarely fail to be very impressed by the quality and dedication of the teachers and support staff.
Musically Fairchildes was a delight. I was treated to some incredible singing and songs.
Their steel band was stunning! To see the teachers and children dancing together in the playground was joyous.
I learnt so much in the happy days that I spent here. The children were forthcoming, welcoming, articulate and had really open minds, we had such fun!
These teachers were getting something really right.
Those children are so lucky to be immersed in such a creative, caring and supportive atmosphere.
I think the photos tell the story.
These are some of the stages that went into the production of the final pop up spread for the children's pop up book, Big Bug Little Bug by children's author, illustrator and pop up book designer, Paul Stickland.
I knew I wanted to create a splash for the final pop up spread in this children's book about bugs.
A flower seemed like a great solution, so I set about creating a pop up mechanism that would be both dramatic and allow me a lot of space to place all the pop up bugs in the book.
I had a lot of pop up bugs to place too!
Oh and some text!
It took a lot of attempts to get them all to play nicely!
This is the finished result. Created after many, many different design versions.
Folding Techniques for Designers by Paul Jackson from Laurence King Publishing on Vimeo.
From an introduction to Paul Jackson's book 'Folding Techniques for Designers: From Sheet to Form'.
This unique book explains the key techniques of folding, such as pleated surfaces, curved folding and crumpling. It has applications for architects, product designers, and jewellery and fashion designers. This short video explains the potential from such folds. Where such folds appear very complex yet are very simple but lend huge flexibility to the finished products.
Su Blackwell is a wonderfully imaginative artist who works in paper.
I find it inspirational how she makes books come to life. Creating three dimensional worlds from out of the context of the printed page.
The power of the fold in the context of the book itself.
Su's work is in the collections of admirers around the world, including Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter.
Paul Stickland Author Events and Pop Up Book Workshops
I spend a lot of time out on the road giving author visits and pop-up book workshops for children of all ages and abilities, including those with special needs. It's a great privilege and I have had the pleasure to meet and work with children in schools, libraries and at many of the major UK Literary Festivals and Music Festivals, in Europe and the US.
Read More to see what could happen at your Paul Stickland Author Event of Pop Up Workshop!
This is Genius! Using really simple paper engineering principles and taking advantage of the great possibilities of curved folds, Foldboat have created something that I wish I had!
Brilliant!
Maori Kimura is a Textile Designer based in Tokyo.
She has invented the method to make Origami pattern with silk-screen printed on cloth with heat reactive foaming ink.
The printed foaming ink pattern makes semi-hardened plate and crease line/curve. Tacking backside of the cloth with sewing thread makes Origami patterns in 3D.
Really easy kid's paper craft activity.
A single sheet of A4 card, folded in half and cut. They are delightfully bouncy!
You could try making small ones to use with Christmas Lights.
I created one with a colour changing LED and it looked so cool!
If you want to create your own wonderful pop up cards or pop up books, then these templates are free to download and use.
So here is a link to a great set of japanese free pop up card templates which you simply download and print onto a suitable card. They are then ready to make or modify to craft your own unique pop up card designs. You can use these pop up mechanisms to create your own pop up books too.
Great use of paper engineering to get an idea across, a great way to get engaged with the subject of the video, carrying the 'Opening the page, open your life' message.
THis is a fantastic rotating pop up mechanism. Tricky to cut out and fold, so do try the easy version first! Here are the free pop up templates for the two rotating paper mechanisms shown in the video above.
Daniel Agdag is a Melbourne based artist and filmmaker who creates meticulous industrial objects out of just, believe it or not, cardboard. These complex sets are cut into manageable pieces using a surgical scalpel and assembled intuitively by hand using wood glue without any detailed plans or drawings. He describes his process as being a kin to that of drawing in three dimensions with cardboard.
