Three-Dimensional Illustrated Correspondence

Alfred Joseph Frueh (1880-1968) was a cartoonist and illustrator, who was probably best known for his caricatures of theater personalities appearing in The New Yorker from 1925 to 1962. In addition, he was also a creator of paper sculptures, pop-ups, cut-outs and toy animals. Frueh (pronounced "free") began his career working in the art department of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch until 1908. After studying in Europe, he settled in New York, and began a tenure with The World. In 1913, he married Giuliette Fanciulli while on assignment in Europe, and they resettled in New York a year later. While on assignments for The World, he would often write illustrated letters to his wife and family. These and other printed materials, artworks and photographs documenting his notable career, are contained in the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art. The 3D illustrated letter seen above, is designed to inform his wife about the details of an art gallery before her visit, and it was included in the 2007 exhibition More Than Words, at the Archives of American Art's New York Research Center. A companion publication featuring these artful letters was published by Princeton Architectural Press. Check out the entire online exhibition of artist illustrated letters here. Below is a 1913 New Year's greeting sent to his fiancée Giuliette Fanciulli.

Where There's Smoke

With the rise of cigarette smoking in the early half of the 20th century, and the appearance of increasingly nice cigarette packaging design such as the Player's box above, a new folk art craft quickly evolved. The practice of folding paper objects and artworks from tobacco packaging became a favorite pastime as smoking products were more widely distributed. Over time the paper artworks became more complex, and the increase of functional objects, such as purses, toys, vases and frames began to appear. With exception to some of the great early packaging design, I suspect this folk art tradition was possibly the only positive consequence that developed from tobacco use. 

Here is a fine example of a decorative wall piece made from at least 25 Player's cigarette boxes. It's estimated to be mid-20th century, and measures about 6.5 inches in diameter. For a view of similar examples of these elaborate decorative works made from cigarette boxes, visit The Puzzle Museum's Hordern-Dalgety Collection.
     One of the most beautiful and paradoxical influences of this paper-folding practice evolved in the Japanese internment camps during WWII. Origami was a favored pastime for many of the internment camp detainees who relied on their paper-folding skills to create innovative structures from cigarette wrappers such as the small umbrellas. With the addition of toothpicks, string, chopsticks, and a great deal of time, they could fashion a small umbrella to be used as a gift or a toy for a child. The miniature umbrella below was made by a Japanese internee living in the Tule Lake internment camp in California. It is remarkable not only for the craftsmanship and the condition, but also for the beautiful spiral pattern created by the letters on the wrappers. You can read more about the history of this particular origami work of art at Mingei Arts.
::The Player's cigarette package above is from Cigcard's Flickrstream.

     

Paper Revolution

A stop-motion animation by UK photographer Chris Turner and crew who performed magic to illustrate the vital lifecycle of a drop of water. This one minute and forty-five second short took nearly one year to make and involved over a thousand stills of pure paper engineering pleasure by Helen Friel. Animation by Jess Deacon.
::From Colossal via faith is torment


An animation of Helen Friel making her book Revolution.

Pixels versus Dots

British artist Evelin Kasikov continues to exploit the boundaries of craft and graphic design, by illustrating the technical aspects of four-color process printing with hand embroidery. Her latest studies now venture into the realm of the digital RGB screen which she represents in red, green, and blue threads, plus black for the screen's display. Together, her three embroidered paper books plus the tablet provide a fascinating visual interpretation of the digital versus analog—or the pixel versus dots metadata—and her portrayal of this information is itself, an elegant display and craft. An earlier account of a previous Kasikov work appeared here last year.   

De Papiermolen Promotions

Da Papiermolen was a paper promotion periodical targeting designers and featuring examples of fine commercial printing. The six cover examples above are shared from Taowaki's Flickrstream and range in age from the mid-1930s to early 1950s. Some of the beautiful illustration work printed on the uncoated papers, appears to be "tipped on" or attached post printing, which requires a great deal of extra handwork. Similarly, some of the colored paper examples are also collaged on, such as the tulips on the cover of issue No. 13 and the women's coat and dress on the cover immediately above. Although most of the designs of these paper promotions go uncredited, Jan Lutz is credited with the cover of issue No. 8 and a few of the boldly illustrated interior images. Koen van Os also receives credit for the cover design of issue No. 11 and much of the interior illustrations. See more here.  

Metropop-upolis

Pop-up NYC is the work of designer Daisy Lew who lives and works in New York City. The common theme of her unusual pop-up book structures are tall buildings all engineered and constructed of small paper buildings.
::Thanks to Popularkinetics for the link.

An Alternate 3D Univers

Second year design student Sean Loomis takes on a 3D Univers, and deconstructs all 26 letters of the alphabet with hand-cut and folded paper for his recent experimental type project. Using stop-motion animation, he films the distorted uppercase letters with a revolving motion until each one comes into vision, closely resembling Adrian Frutigers' original designs for Univers 59 Ultra Condensed. Nicely synced with a soundtrack by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, (Ok, Across the Universe might have been too obvious a choice), Sean's alternate condensed universe is a great experimental adventure.

The Silkscreen Editions of Icinori

Icinori is a small DIY silkscreen publisher based in France, featuring the work of Raphael Urwiller and Mayumi Otero, and friends. Urwiller and Otero produce all of the books and posters which are for sale in small editions and sell out quickly. The pop-up above appears to be their newest wordless book which is quite grand. More of their brightly-colored work can be seen below, and on their blog and flickr site. I cannot wait to see more work from them.   

Animals, Urwiller, 2010. Wordless accordion book, printed in an edition of 25.

Residues of Sirens, by Clemence Pollet, 2009. 70 copies, sold out.

Weeders, 2009 by Raphael Urwiller. 70 copies, sold out.

No Man's Land, 2009. 35 copies with 20 different colors on the inside alone. Sold out. 

Gourdin, 2009, 25 copies, sold out.

Retarded, by Brecht Vandenbroucke, 2009, 40 copies, sold out.