Talking pops!

This week we entered the world of book arts with  pop-up book design. Who doesn't love the delight of opening a great pop-up book?

As Montreal pop-up artist Natalie Draz says "there's no such thing as a new fold in pop-up design. It's basically all about the remix." Our pop-up session included the classic pop-up fold: the talk box (aka the mouth fold).

Kids and adults alike love the talk box. Because it's easy to make and because it immediately evokes a snapping mouth. It's a great introductory fold because it gently leads our young paper engineers into "thinking with their hands". For pop-up art, the paper must be coaxed into the form.

Once constructed, the talk box can be modified. Jagged teeth are popular. As are wagging tongues…

A talk box might conceal a secret hideout for the reader to discover...

With this page made we started to construct a storybook. Some students want to keep adding pages at home. Some kids added text others preferred more of a comic format, but either way storytelling and design narrative started to merge.

The tale of the mystic Lily Pad

These workshops are made possible  by the Toronto Arts Council.

Meet me at the carnival

Roll up! Rollup! It's carnival time at Invention Squad. What better way to beat off the winter blues than to design a great fair game and play it with your friends? This was definitely the funnest, wackiest session yet. We challenged the kids to make a transportable/foldable set-up and to test it by playing it with their friends and parents. This is cardboard prototyping and design by play- a natural for kid experimenters.

This design had a moving element. The girls came up with a spinning ball trap, with cups attached to a central cylinder.

Testing time. This game is trickier than it looks.

This two person game is built like a tray to be carried around one person's neck. Players face one another and compete to get balls into the suspended cups.

               
  This team decided to go big and built a personal pool table. Loads of action, lots of laughs.

Kinetic Sculpture

In our first session of Fall workshops at Artscape Youngplace and in the second week at the TP Loblaw K Club we issued a mash-up design challenge, asking the kids to come up with a kinetic sculpture that is also a sign. 

After a planning phase, we gave the students a table full of materials and the ever popular glue guns and they set to building their prototypes.

Quite a few of our young designers made classic mobiles. This bedroom sign used some interesting sculptural elements. 

This sculpture took inspiration from Minecraft and used a nice range of materials to point the way.

We liked the striking use of colours and the strong graphic design of this video game sign.

In this idea, the student made a table-top yard sale sculpture mounted on a flexible base with wobbling faces on either side.  

And this kinetic sculpture had a windmill feature made of plastic spoons, that could either be wind-driven or could be hooked up to a motor to make it spin. 

Both these designs used a full range of materials and included lots of interesting elements. 

This sculpture sign was for a skateboard store. The sign was mounted on a skateboard that moved down a ramp.  A fully thought out prototype! 

Pop-up!

This week we entered the world of book arts with  pop-up book design. Who doesn't love the delight of opening a great pop-up book?

As Montreal pop-up artist Natalie Draz says "there's no such thing as a new fold in pop-up design. It's basically all about the remix." With this in mind our pop-up session included two classic pop-up folds: the talk box (aka the mouth fold) and the integrated box fold.

Kids and adults alike love the talk box. Because it's easy to make and because it immediately evokes a snapping mouth. It's a great introductory fold because it gently leads our young paper engineers into "thinking with their hands". For pop-up art, the paper must be coaxed into the form.

Once constructed, the talk box can be modified. Jagged teeth are popular. As are wagging tongues…

A talk box might conceal a secret message for the reader.

Howabout this double embedded talk box a student came up with all on his own?

The integrated box fold is often seen in the form of a square platform.

A whole bunch of them together make excellent skeleton ribs.

Once this fold is mastered it lends itself to experimentation. Integrated boxes can be made at different angles and combined to create interesting structures.

Here's a nested structure in development.

Love the way the green backing paper adds dimensionality to this page.

With these pages made we started to construct a storybook. Why not use a combination of the folds on one page? Some students want to keep adding pages at home…

 This student used an integrated box to support delicate waving sea weed.

Here's a book about a mad scientist, who unfortunately blows himself up!

Some kids added text others preferred more of a comic format, but either way storytelling and design narrative started to merge.