Papercraft Prototypes

For the Papercraft project I had been toying with the idea of text and movement. I was heavily inspired by Li Hongbo's moveable sculptures as previously mentioned, but also Ben Skinner. Ben is a Vancouver based artist who is well known for his bizarre use of materials and witty, thought-evoking text pieces. I have been working on some of my own pieces involving text and I thought the application of this concept to paper craft would have an interesting outcome.

My idea for this project was to apply movement and text to an object I use everyday. I prototyped an  iPhone which expands and contracts. The centre part, which allows this model to move, is folded text. When you open the phone you can read the message, and when you close it, it sits flat like a regular iPhone. I protoyped two models, the first was a basic cutout to form the idea physically. The second I crafted in Rhino, then cut out. I changed my text to be shorter so I could focus on the design of the model and perfecting the method of movement.

Even though I got close, the letters still didn't fold perfectly to sit inside the shape of the phone. I also didn't use the make2D command in Rhino, so I have lines across my design. However, I believe that if I was to tweak the way the letters folded down, my design would perform as envisioned.