Production Lesson(s)

There were many challenges in creating a custom pop-up book. How do you take a 2-dimensional object like paper and make it work in a 3-dimensional way? Rethinking how paper can bend and fold to move the way you want was a whole new way of designing for us. And we learned pretty quickly that pop-up books do not fit in either the traditional packaging or books category.

So we had to ask ourselves a lot of questions and find the answers through trial and error. For example, we had to think about how the book worked when both open and closed. Did we have the right amount of paper tension? Will the layers stand up straight? And for how long? Will the glue hold? Is tape better? When the book is closed, will the layers tangle and tear the next time the book opens?

We built 11 mockups over the course of 4 months, tweaking layers and adjusting the illustrations between each version. The first few mockups included major redesigns, but with each subsequent version, the changes became more refined and the popup worked more smoothly.

Once we were happy with the final product, we had to come up with a way to hand assemble the rest of the popups in an efficient way. Tab placement guides were built into the clear gloss base and specific measurements were made for tab placements to add the correct tension throughout each layer. If tabs were not staggered, the entire book wouldn't close.

It was a steep learning curve and a LOT of work, but finishing something with this level of detail and complexity that the client also fell in love with is very rewarding.