STARS AND SQUARES

Saw this pattern on Andrea Russo's Flickr and liked it (and thought it was easy enough that someone like me could figure it out just by looking at it...) It's pretty cool. The little concentric square folds contrasted by the squares makes me pretty happy.

NATURAL CURVES

Something as simple as a few diagonal and horizontal folds can create the most interesting natural curvature in a flat sheet of paper. It's basically just a crease pattern of X's and some horizontal lines. How simple is that? I experimented with dividing the paper into 8ths, then 16ths. The 8ths proved to be the perfect number, while the 16ths were actually very tricky as the paper starts to try and curl into itself.

The next step is to stretch and compress the crease pattern by folding on papers with different dimensions (these were done on square sheets) and see how those turn out. Hurray, another glorious technique from Paul Jackson's Folding Techniques for Product Designers.

SHEISSE!

Ze Germans!! Zey have done it. A beautiful folded installation called Wandern im Wissen. It's just a simple fold technique, but enlarged and used as a projection screen. And I love eet! Scheiße!

 

Watch this video. It's in German, but you can kind of get the gist of how neat it is. Or read more here. Or watch this 8 minute video of colours and lights. Or get off the computer and go fold something. I don't know, it's up to you.

BORED TO DEATH

So, I got locked out from the office today. Actually, I don't have a key, so I can't even blame myself. Anyways, the only people with keys were in a meeting, so I was stuck wandering around for 3 hours (which I'm not complaining about). The time-killing session ended in Starbucks... Did I mention I have this notorious habit of folding up my receipts when I'm bored? They generally don't end up all that cool but this time I thought it was blog-worthy...

Scrumptious paper valleys. This technique came from Paul Jackson's Folding Techniques for Designers.

STARBURSTS

Hangin' out at the grandparent's... Had a little fun with this. I used sketchbook paper from my brother's sketchbook and it's definitely not the best to fold with. It doesn't have very good memory and it's very soft. Either way, here's a pattern I saw on Andrea Russo's Flickr.

Despite the fact that this tessellation is relatively flat and the paper never overlaps (but I still think it's technically considered a tessellation?) I like how it catches light. Other tessellations look nice when they're back-lit, but this one looks good when light is coming across it's surface. Yum.

LINED PAPER: NOT JUST FOR DOODLING

I love scrap lined paper. Although I'm not at my regular work station back home - I'm visiting my cousins in Toronto - I've still managed to make time to fold a little bit. Found a piece of lined paper lying around on a desk and folded a pattern from Eric Gjerde's Flickr.

I like this pattern with it's octagons and squares... And I feel like I can develop it further, so it's time to get some more lined paper.

NOW I NEED A CRAFT ROBO

Spending time on Flickr has its advantages. The other day, browsing through some cool origami albums, I stumbled upon Polly Verity and her Flickr account - which is just full of gorgeous works.

 

The stuff she makes is so magical and seems to defy all folding laws - perfect curves, corners and edges. How does she do it? She folds polypropylene using a Craft Robo - a printer-like device that has a small blade rather than ink cartridges. Through a compter program, patterns can be made then "printed" through the Craft Robo onto anything from light film to cardstock and plastic. These scored cuts on the polypro can then be folded and collapsed into things like what Polly Verity does. In conclusion, I need a Craft Robo and some polypropylene.

CHÂTEAU-CHINON

It may not look like much, but it's probably the hardest tessellation I've done so far.

"Château-Chinon" by Christiane Bettens

Inspired by the architectural tilling seen in the French city Château-Chinon.

CUBISM DREAM

 

Eric Djerde's "Square Weave".

After all the geometric forms that have been explored,

I can't forget the square!

TESSELLATE THIS!

My attempt at various tessellations by Eric Gjerde