June 26, 2008

I remember Whitman Press-Out Books...



When I was a kid in the late 1970's /early 1980's, airline travel was a bit expensive for my family.  We moved a lot, like every two to three years, often to places ton opposite sides of the country.  I think the only way my Mom could keep me occupied during those long trips was to buy me a sack full of activity and coloring books.  It was a cheap way of shutting me up - and she always made me wait, like, an hour into the trip before I could open them.  This was before cars had built-in televisions and dvd players  - wow, writing that makes me feel really old.

My favorites to were always the Whitman Press-Out books or as we called them, "punch-out" books.  I loved assembling these little three-dimensional paper dioramas complete with little paper characters to play inside.  The back seat floor in my parents' Cutlass Oldsmobile transformed into a bustling airport, a natural history museum filled with dinosaurs, a wild African safari or even an old-time circus.  


Of course, I always lost the pieces along the way or my Mom secretly threw them in the trash after we got to our destination.  That part of my memory is always foggy.  At any rate, I remember vividly how much fun it was to construct worlds with just a few pieces of paper. Maybe it's one of the things that inspired the work I do today - or maybe it is just something cool from childhood.  

-MR

Virtual Pop-Ups


When people ask me if I feel threatened by the emerging popularity of e-books I feel justified in stating that three dimensional pop-up books don't translate well into a digitized two dimensional world like a Kindle or computer screen.  With brisk advancements in computing and graphics, that may not always be the case. 

It seems that virtual pop-up books are becoming more popular on the Web.  I was impressed with the digital pop-up books at ecodazoo.com (mentioned in an earlier post) and there have been a rash of recent digital pop-up books showing up in music videos and car advertisements that might show up later in the blog.

A few months ago I came across a virtual pop-up book from the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia.  It seems natural to incorporate pop-ups with a fun kid-friendly museum, and the website did a nice job of engaging viewers by allowing them to manipulate and navigate through the single spread book.  Unbound from the rules of geometry and gravity, the designers have created a bustling composition.  As is the case for almost all of the websites, these virtual books could not exist in reality, but they function well as a teaching and navigation tool for the web.  With another crop of computer science and design graduates storming out of the schools this summer I expect to see many more refined and inventive examples.  I’ll keep you posted!

-Kyle

Visit the site 

(This website may require additional free computer programs and patience.)

June 19, 2008

I've got scissors, big ones and little ones...



One of Matthew Reinhart's first television interviews and pretty funny -  especially because the producer decided to include quite of few of Matthew's flubs.  



Is this...

cool or what?


Say "Hello" to Kyle, Jess and Simon...



Kyle Olmon has been lead designer with Sabuda & Reinhart Studio since 2005.  In 2006, he created the New York Times best-selling book, Castle: Medieval Days and Knights, the first title of the Sabuda & Reinhart imprint at Scholastic Books.  A talented artist from his youth, Kyle was born and raised outside of Chicago, Illinois where he earned degrees in Painting and Art History before he jumped into t
he exciting world of pop-ups.  When not teaching Paper Engineering at the renowned art school Pratt Institute, Kyle can be found restoring antique movable books from his rapidly growing collection.



A recent graduate from Pratt Institute, Jessica Tice is a 4-year veteran designer at Sabuda & Reinhart Studio, and an absolute master of color.  Jess is the brilliant painter behind most of the painted papers Robert and Matthew use in their cut-paper collage artwork for books like Jungle Book, Star Wars: Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy and Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs.  An equally talented paper engineer in her own right, she cuts, glues, tapes and folds paper into many of the pop-ups in their books and cards as well!

Simon Arizpe is originally from Tuscon, Arizona.  He has been working at the Sabuda & Reinhart Studio for two years.  An Illustration Department graduate of Pratt Institute, he has been making things out of paper most of his life.  He enjoys biking, kayaks and warm summer evenings.  His favorite foods include mangos and avocados.  He lives currently in Brooklyn.



Welcome!


Hello everyone,

Hopefully over the next few weeks we'll be able to update you on all the great projects here at the pop-up studio of Matthew Reinhart and Robert Sabuda.  You'd think there would be a lot of goofing off here (and I guess there is SOME of that) but we take our paper engineering very seriously!  

This blog may feature things less directly related to our books
, which our websites, RobertSabuda.com and Matthew Reinhart.com, detail MUCH more thoroughly.  At RobertSabuda.com, there are all kinds of awesome do-it-yourself pop-ups that you can print-out and new features every few weeks on new book releases, pop-up artists and various events.  You can even buy signed books at the site as well.  

Here, we'll introduce you to everyone here at the studio, showcase cool pop-up stuff that we find on the internet,  cool stuff we just like (whether it's pop-up related or not) and maybe even give you a sneak peak at our upcoming projects, like this photo of the second page spread from our upcoming July release, Encyclopedia Mytholigica: Fairies and Magical Creatures!


Hope you enjoy - 

MR