Pop-up Engineering

I have been away at West Dean doing a course on Pop-up Engineering. The tutor was Mark Hiner. He is a Paper Engineer who designs Pop-Up books and that is what we were taught to do. I had imagined that we would be taught how to make a few cards. Not a bit of it. Yes, we made samples but we then assembled our samples  into a hardback book as one would if selling an idea to a publisher and there was a lot of instruction on how to present the final work as something that can be mass-produced. In other words, you need production engineering drawings!! Been there, done that!!1

 As you can imagine, the class was very varied. There was an illustrator of children's book, Emily Gravett, (her books are smashing), two people who worked for publishers, an American who has written a PhD thesis on the history of Pop-up (!!!) and an assortment of interested parties. I have come home with a huge pile of samples and will have to find a box to keep them in. 

This was an early sample and has actually got two layers in it. The birds are on the rear layer  and they are completely out of scale with the sheep in the foreground.

These two hornbills are much better. You can see the rear layer more more clearly.


At the end we were taught how to design a card and then to draw up a master and then manufacture one. This means that I could produce a number of such cards

A birthday card for my grandson, Alex, who is crazy about bats.

I have come home with a huge list of actions and must get on with weaving. I did do more last Thursday and Friday but I will report on that tomorrow.