We’ve got a brand new Kickstarter campaign to share! This time, it’s a super handy pop-up chessboard created by Paper Engineer David Hawcock and his team from Infinite Jest. When you’re a fan of pop-ups (like us) you have probably already seen his work on our website and YouTube channel. David Hawcock, who also created the Davinci’s Inventions pop-up book and the pop-up scenes in Paddington 2, now designed a chessboard that has some really neat features. And you can back this project on Kickstarter right now!

Who doesn’t like chess right? It’s one of the oldest board games that still has a huge fanbase from young to old. We’ve already seen chess on electronic devices, computer games, smaller travel editions, and recently magnetic boards that have mechanisms that move the pieces automatically. But this pop-up chess set adds a new category to the list. It folds out from a flat cover into a 3D chessboard and you can stop or continue the game any time you like. Because the pieces stay in place when you fold them in, it will be ready to play the next time you open it. That’s a really nice and unique feature to have for a physical chessboard!

Het bericht The Pop-Up Chess Set (Kickstarter) verscheen eerst op Best Pop-up Books.

Great news! Another Poposition Press Kickstarter project! From master paper engineers David A. Carter and James Diaz, the sequel to their well-known The Elements of Pop Up explores advanced pop-up book techniques. A must-have for every Paper Engineer and hobbyist.

Over two decades after releasing The Elements of Pop Up, widely regarded as the best how-to book on making pop-ups, paper engineers David A. Carter and James Diaz have returned with The Complexities of Pop Up. A book packed with complex pop-up techniques and real working examples.

Het bericht The Complexities of Pop-up (Kickstarter) verscheen eerst op Best Pop-up Books.

We love to see pop-up books on Kickstarter! It’s a great way to get your hands on unique titles that most likely will be highly collectible over time. We have already seen some successful campaigns that made it to publication like What a Mess, 24 Hour Flowers and The Struwwelpeter Pop-Up. One of the first successfully funded pop-up book campaigns on Kickstarter was the beautiful Pop-up Funk book, published by Poposition Press. A collaboration between comic artist and illustrator Jim Mahfood and Paper Engineer Rosston Meyer. And here comes the exciting news: Pop-Up Funk is back on Kickstarter with a brand new campaign! Poposition Press, who also did a successfully funded Kickstarter campaign for The Pop-up Art Book, already has a lot of experience as an independent publisher. So investing money as a backer to this campaign is a safe bet. In this article, you will learn more about this beautiful pop-up title and how you can be part of making this publication reality.

Pop-Up Funk is succesfully funded!

February 28, 2020

Pop Up Funk is a beautifully illustrated pop up art book, paper engineered and published by Poposition Press. The book features artist Jim Mahfood’s unique style in a three dimensional pop up format. Pop Up Funk includes six pop up spreads: Funky Beats, Sir?, Grrl Scouts, Pure Gonzo, Everybody Loves Tank Girl, Pop Life and Thrilling.

“A pop up book featuring indie artist Jim Mahfood’s signature style, in three glorious dimensions.”

Het bericht Pop-Up Funk (Kickstarter Project) verscheen eerst op Best Pop-up Books.

In 1845 Heinrich Hoffman created Der Struwwelpeter for his son in response to what he perceived to be a lack of good children’s books. The book became widely popular among children and adults.

A brand new Kickstarter pop-up project kicked off recently! A campaign by Artist Marianne R. Petit who illustrates, makes pop-up books, animations, interactive experiences and much more. A couple of years ago, Marianne created a series of handmade editioned books (accordion, pop-up, carousel, tunnel, and more) based on Heinrich Hoffman’s storybook Der Struwwelpeter. She was completely inspired by this theme and decided to start a Kickstarter campaign.

“Anyone can build their own Shockheaded Peter toys, sculptures, and more… “

So now, with this Kickstarter Project, the work of Marianne is ready to be shared with the World. There are lots of rewards to choose from, including a single volume pop-up book complete with scroll, DIY papercraft activities, an electronic version of the book complete with animations and also coloring book pages.

Der Struwwelpeter

Welcome to the strange sadistic world of Heinrich Hoffman. The young characters in Hoffman’s stories suffer from terrible moral punishment because of their misbehavior. Somewhere before 1845, Heinrich Hoffman wrote Der Struwwelpeter for his son. He created this bundle of ten stories because of the lack of good children’s books. Heinrich must have thought that there’s nothing educational about princesses and dragons. Children should learn from their mistakes and death, mostly gruesomely.

After its publication in 1845, the book became widely popular among children and adults. And still is! Especially among adults, who are fascinated by the fact that these classic stories for children were so extremely cruel and child-unfriendly. Not convinced yet? How about the story of Pauline and the Matches. The moral here is: if you play with fire you will burn to death. Or the story of Augustus Who Would Not Eat His Soup that will warn you that if you don’t eat what you are given, you will starve to death and die.

You’ll probably know that we are huge fans of independent pop-up book publishers and creators. Crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter are the perfect place to discover amazing and unique projects created by talented Paper Engineers and Artists.

Marianne: “I’ve been wanting to make my handmade editioned books more broadly available for quite some time, so this campaign is a bit of a dream come true. So far, it has been an amazing experience to pursue the self-publishing / crowd-funding process. Everyone has been extraordinarily generous in sharing their experience and knowledge along the way. I’m excited to come up with even more rewards to say “THANK YOU!” to everyone.”

Het bericht The Struwwelpeter Pop-Up (Kickstarter) verscheen eerst op Best Pop-up Books.

On the inside of this old and rusty clock you’ll find 8 species of flowers that all have one thing in common: their blooms only last for one day! Prepare for a journey full of new botanical knowledge and breathtaking classic illustrations. 24 Hour Flowers is a unique 12-sided pop-up book with lots of facts about four flora families. You will learn what makes them the same, and what makes them different.

24 Hour Flowers is succesfully funded!

October 2, 2017

It’s no secret that we are huge fans of independent pop-up book publishers and creators. Crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter are the perfect place to discover amazing and unique projects created by talented Paper Engineers and Artists. One of the most recent and running projects on Kickstarter right now is the beautiful pop-up book 24 Hours Flowers, created by artist Emily Brooks and Paper Engineer Matt Holbein. Matt and Emily are also the creators of the successful funded Kickstarter pop-up project The Bee Book.

24 Hour Flowers is a celebration of fleeting flora, but it also functions as an educational tool to learn about plant taxonomy, or how plants are arranged into families. First, the book divides bilaterally into monocotyldons on the left and dicotyldons on the right– the most basic distinction in classifying plants. These two sections are each sub-divided into two families, a garden grows amongst clock gears, and within each family two species are featured for a total of 8 blooms growing from the center of the book.

Het bericht 24 Hour Flowers (Kickstarter Project) verscheen eerst op Best Pop-up Books.

Het bericht What a Mess! launched on Kickstarter verscheen eerst op Best Pop-up Books.

Left: Rosston Meyer, right: Marc Meyer

We’ve just published a video review on our YouTube channel about The Pop-Up Art Book. An amazing collection of modern street art, illustrations and cartoons published by Poposition Press. Rosston Meyer and his brother Marc Meyer worked on this project together and successfully crowdfunded it on Kickstarter.

Rosston, who’s representing Poposition Press, answered some questions we asked him about The Pop-Up Art Book and his work as a paper engineer.

The interview

BPUB – How did your love for pop-up books started?
RM – Like many people, I had a few pop-up books as a kid. But it was when I was a teenager and I got a copy of Robert Sabuda’s Alice in Wonderland book that I was first really amazed by a pop-up book and had the thought to one day make one myself.

BPUB – What’s your history with paper and paper engineering?
RM – I had a loose idea to make a pop-up with some of the artists I was a fan of from the comic book and designer toy worlds, but that idea sat with me for about fifteen years before I really did anything with it. It was kind of one of those things I would talk about here and there, but didn’t actually do anything with. That was until 2013 when I started working with Jim Mahfood on what would become my first pop-up book, Pop Up Funk. My brother Marc and I worked together on that book, both designing and then assembling 100 copies, so that was really my first foray into the world of paper art and pop-up books. There were a lot of unknowns with that project from: cost per book, time involved to assemble a copy, and how to best make the pop-ups work. After that book was done and released, I knew that I wanted to make another book. But I had to look at getting it mass produced in a professional pop-up assembly factory, which is what happened with the follow up book, The Pop Up Art Book.

BPUB – Do you have any plans or offers for higher volumes and more commercial titles?
RM – Yes, starting now in 2016, I have a few art books planned similar to the ones that Poposition has already released, as well as a more commercial book focused on just one subject. I’m working with a handful of different paper engineers on this upcoming project and look forward to seeing what everyone involved comes up with, and how it all comes together. Look for an announcement on this book the first few months of 2016, and hopefully a release in the summertime.

As far as quantity, moving forward the artist books will have runs of at least 1000 copies (just like The Pop Up Art Book’s run), and possibly 2500 copies.

BPUB – Who are your favorite and most inspiring popup book authors or paper engineers?
RM – I would say one of my favorite paper engineers would have to be Matthew Reinhart, because the work that he puts out book after book just gets more impressive as time goes one. The flip style effect found in his Transformers book is just amazing to me.

Another paper engineer I have a lot of respect for is Roger Culbertson. I initially met Roger back in Florida around 2005, when I had some interest in pop-ups but no solid ideas or plans on what to do. Roger showed me all sorts of books and promotional items he had worked on and I was amazed by what could be done with paper. Fast forward about ten year after I’ve put a few books out on my own, and Roger and I have worked together on a commercial pop-up project for an agency in Singapore. He’ll be one of the engineers on the commercial book I previously mentioned.

Finally, David Carter is another favorite engineer of mine, especially with the artistic shapes found in his One Red Dot series of books. I find those books to be very interesting with the use of primarily colors and simple shapes, and how he’s designed interactivity into those book (finding the One Red Dot or 600 black spots, for example) David is one of the first people in the pop-up book world that I got in contact with when starting to make my own books and he’s been very helpful and supportive in many ways. He too will be one of the engineers in the aforementioned book.

BPUB – What’s the most difficult/technical spread you have ever made and why?
RM – That would be the “Onna Bune 1” spread, which was the special page that came with Junko Mizuno’s Artist Editions of The Pop Up Art Book. It was the most difficult page I’ve done because there were so many small pieces to extract from the original art, and I feel that the final pop-up version is in a way better than the original in that it truly gives the sense of a full scene with the boat visible on top of the ocean, compared to the original art which has a lot going on.

Detailed production photos from the “Onna Bune 1” spread by Junko Mizuno, shared from the very interesting @popositionpress Instagram Channel.

BPUB – How did you get to collaborate with great artists such as Jim Mahfood and Junko Mizuno?
RM – I’ve been very lucky to be able to work with my favorite artists. I got to know Jim Mahfood first by working with him on his website (my day job is Web Designer) and I always had the idea to make pop-ups out of his work but wasn’t sure how to go about it. Eventually, around 2012, we started talking about it seriously and after one spread was made, he agreed to creating fill in and cover the art for an entire ten page book. Getting that made was no small feat and my brother Marc helped me both with the design of that book and the extremely labourous task of cutting, assembling and binding those ten page into a 100 copy run of Pop Up Funk.

BPUB – Are you planning to release a book with your own artwork and paper engineering in the future?
RM – Not with my own artwork, as I don’t think badly drawn stick figure type art lends itself well to a pop-up book! Honestly, I feel as if there’s an unlimited amount of incredible artwork that can be made into pop-ups. So as far as the art books I’ll be focusing on making books with visual artists rather than make the art myself.

“I think Kickstarter is a great way to get the word out about unique pop-up book projects. The goal for The Pop-Up Art Book’s Kickstarter was reached in about a week or so.”

BPUB – We have recently seen new popup book projects on KickStarter. Do you think that indie productions are the future of popup books?
RM – Yes, I think Kickstarter is a great way to get the word out about unique pop-up book projects. The goal for The Pop-Up Art Book’s Kickstarter was reached in about a week or so. Which I’d like to attribute to both the existing audiences that each artist involved has, as well as the ongoing promotion that I’ve been doing for Poposition on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. By the time the project was launched, a lot of people already knew about the book and that helped the goal get reached quickly.

BPUB – Your books represent a mix of comic and street art. Have you ever considered making a pop-up book just about graffiti?
RM – Yes, I have thought about this and talked to some people that are known in the graffiti world. I think the difficult thing is getting the right people to do it, those that have a large appeal and are known like some of these other artists. With graffiti it’s tricky because a lot of people don’t want to be known and the few (Fairey, DAIM, Invader) that are likely bigger than life, wouldn’t want to do a pop-up. So I think the selection of artists, and artwork (or photographs, I guess) is the tricky part. A lot of the artist I’m working with do mural work but aren’t necessarily known as ‘graf’ writers. But ever since I was a teenager and first see DAIM’s work on the web I’ve thought… pop-up!?!

BPUB – What do you think of bestpopupbooks.com ?
RM – I think it’s a great site and resource for pop-up book collector and paper engineers. There aren’t many sites dedicated to pop-up book news and interviews like BestPopUpBooks.com is, and even fewer people doing video reviews of books. I’m honored to be asked to do this interview and hope to see many more video reviews on the site throughout the year.

Thank you Rosston! We can’t wait for your next project!

Order this book at Amazon: The Pop-Up Art Book

Published by Poposition Press
Paper Engineering by Rosston Meyer and Marc Meyer
Book Design by Kevin Steele

Artwork by:
Howling Masher by Aaron Woes Martin
Morrigan Lupus by Skinner
Drowning Party by Kozyndan
Pancakes by Junko Mizuno
The Water Nebula by Tara McPherson
Bubble Gum Gangsters by Jim Mahfood

The design and paper engineering of The Pop-Up Art Book took place in the United States and has been printed and assembled in China.

Het bericht Rosston Meyer from Poposition Press (Interview) verscheen eerst op Best Pop-up Books.

About the book

This Rockshow pop-up book is not for kids. This is a pop-up book for adult rock fans. It tells the story of music through three-dimensional reconstructions of the most famous live stages in rock history. The Rockshow pop-up book contains seven pop-ups and 13 pages of information, in English, Spanish and French. Each pop-up represents a historical rock concert or tour. The pop-ups are designed with great care for details by using the same instruments, clothing and stage designs.

Interview with the author

We have interviewed Angelo Ferrari about his project an interest in pop-up books:

BPUB – What’s your history with paper and paper engineering?
AF – I am a TV Producer and I write TV shows. Therefore my daily life is quite far from the world of paper. Three years ago I was with my new born daughter Ada and some other young kids (friends of her) and I came across Alice in Wonderland by Robert Sabuda. I was enchanted by the mechanisms and the folding paper of his book so that the next day I bought two copies of it. I tore apart and dismounted one of them and tried to put it back together. I fell in love with doing it straight away so I decided to try to make something of my own. One of my greatest passion is hard rock music, so the choice was quite straightforward and my first pop-up theme was AC/DC. I really enjoyed it and continued putting together enough material to realize a book. This is how Rockshow was born. The very first and only photographic pop-up book about the history of rock. Now I only hope Rockshow will be appreciated enough to become a success.

BPUB – Who are your favorite and most inspiring pop-up book authors or paper engineers?
AF – I got into making pop-ups as I was enchanted by a book of Sabuda, then I got to know the works of Reinhart, David Pelham and others. The books I like the most are those unconventional ones. The Italian Dario Cestaro, David A. Carter and Benjamin Lacombe produced such beautiful things.

BPUB – What’s the most difficult/technical spread in your book and why?
AF – What I’m trying to realize are pop-ups based on real photographs. It is not easy to adapt the hard, unpliable structure of a photo to the mechanism of pop-ups. My pop-ups involve simultaneously a specific technique for every specific photo. Furthermore I decided to reconstruct the sets of the greatest rock concerts in detail, therefore respecting the very original ratio of that specific stage is a further issue to be considered.

BPUB – In case you reach your goal on KickStarter, how will you start up the production?
AF – Everything is set already. There are two companies ready to produce Rockshow. One is located in China and the other one in Thailand. The choice of which company will depend on the number of copies to produce and from the availability of the company itself at that time.

BPUB – What do you think about pop-up books in general?
AF – I think that the magic of pop-ups is indisputable. Unfortunately, the idea of pop-up, directly refers to kids and childhood books. If we could manage to get out of that idea, I truly believe the pop-up technique could find a place in any field.

BPUB – What do you think of bestpopupbooks.com?
AF – I think it’s great. There are very few websites where you can find out information about such a specific and not yet popular subject. Your website is really well done and designed, you can find lots of information, news, tips and contacts. My best congratulations to you.

Thank you Angelo!

We hope that Angelo Ferrari’s project reaches its target so we can add a new original pop-up title to the list of great pop-up books. You can help Angelo by donating at least €5,- for his project or pledge for a copy of his book on KickStarter.

Useful links:
KickStarter project
Website Angelo Ferrari
YouTube video about the project

Inspiring authors
Robert Sabuda
Matthew Reinhart
Dario Cestaro
Benjamin Lacombe
David A. Carter

Het bericht Rockshow – A photographic Pop-Up Book now on KickStarter verscheen eerst op Best Pop-up Books.