1. Roll/letter fold

2. Book/greeting card

3. Quadrants

4. Concertina/accordion

5. Drug info leaflet

6. Roll fold

7. Closed gatefold

Paper folding – first thoughts These were the first folds I came up with – the usual suspects. Folding paper seems to be like the space/visual equivalent of paragraphing: it splits the page/space into chunks that guide the viewer through the information being presented, piece by piece. Fold panels can provide structure, aid navigation through the information and improve accessibility by breaking the info up into manageable ‘bites’ as well as adding visual interest. The names I have used here are not necessarily the names a printer would use! Since doing this I have actually looked up a more ‘orthodox’ list – where I have totally mis-applied a real name I have subsequently changed it to avoid confusion.

Paper folding continued – Trying something more interesting I started off with the old ‘picker game’ (I heard of someone using this for their wedding menu cards) and in the process tried things with square pieces of paper which leant themselves to triangular shapes that seemed to ask to be free standing.

8 9 10

11 12 13

Number 12 makes a sort of house shape - which might be useful for a very specific task – but the shape when opened out has odd notches, which are sort of distracting and have little use. I got this idea from a leaflet I picked up (see below) and I felt that while the missing corner initially caught my eye – the overall impact and use didn’t really warrant all the extra money spent on cutting and folding. Unless there is a clear purpose for the shape – open and closed – it doesn’t seem this has much mileage.

Number 13, a rather striking pyramid, looks good. However, apart from the main triangle, the other pieces are potentially difficult to use (long and thin) and also the way it folds doesn’t give a clear sense as to how to handle it or what order to read the parts in. This could be overcome by the graphics. Overall, as the shapes become more complicated they seem less instinctive to use/read/handle – like paragraphs that no longer have a linear structure. You begin to see why simple concertinas, gatefolds etc are popular! Overall – if I have money to spend on a quirky shape I think I would go for cutting over folding in most cases.