Expressive Paper

Handouts and Instructional Materials

Throughout our series of pilot workshops, our team developed a many handouts, instructions, and templates to support the creation of various types of expressive paper forms. These handouts are intended to guide one through the construction process, while also pointing to the unique affordances and constraints of that particular paper form.

Copyable materials can also be found in our public facing Zines and Expressive Forms Samples and Instructions Google Drive Folder. We welcome your use — and obviously, remix of these materials — in your own endeavors!

Zines and Booklets

One-page Zines

The one-page zine is probably the most familiar and accessible paper form we experimented with in our workshop. They are easily folded from one sheet of paper, can be easily scanned and reproduced, and make for a great building block in conversations about aggregation.

What we find interesting about the one-page zine:

• they lend themselves well to linear narrative
• but they are also double sided; what might be concealed or revealed on the back side of the page?
• their accessibility: easy to print, easy to mail, easy to carry

Download One-page Zine Instructions

Accordion Zine

Accordion fold zines are a common expressive paper form, often used in both zine and artists’ book communities. They can be made with just one piece of paper or by joining joined multiple sheets of paper that are made with a series of peak and valley folds.

What we find interesting about the accordion zine:

• it can be easily adapted for linear narratives
• there are multiple options for reading an accordion zine (is it composed of individual panels or one big panel?)
• the peak and valley folds can conceal and reveal information
• it has multiple, different states of stasis (it can be folded up like a book or standing up)
• it conveys movement, opening, elasticity

Download Accordion Zine Instructions

Lotus Book

Lotus books (or star books, depending on how you fold them) are made with a bookbinding technique where folded squares of paper that are glued together creating three-dimensional, flower-like structures. David Mitchell traces one origin of the lotus book fold to ‘Zhe zhi tu shuo’ (Illustrated Paperfolding), Volume 1, compiled by Gui Shaolie and published in 1914.

IMAGE PLACEHOLDER

What we find interesting about the lotus book:

Download Lotus Book Instructions

Flexagons

Tetra-tetra-flexagon

You can flex this form by folding the two halves away from you and pulling the central seam gently apart. After several flexes, you’ll come to a dead end and can flex back the way you came. Those dead ends can be places of discovery—for instance, you can embed small pop-up structures or tiny pamphlets inside them. Although the “columns” in this flexagon must be the same width, you can experiment with different heights for the “rows” when you do the initial fold into thirds.

You could also experiment with more complex versions that have five rows and two flaps (or seven rows and three flaps!)—you might need to use heavier paper for these.

Tetra-tetra-flexagons suggest interesting possibilities:

• for parallel narratives
• for journeys out and back
• for symmetry and mirroring

Download Tetra-tetra-flexagon Instructions

6-Square Tetraflexagon

To manipulate this form, fold the two sides away from you and pull the center gently apart. In some configurations, there may be two different ways to open it. In others, there’s just one, and you may need to rotate the form 90 degrees to reveal it.

This form has no dead ends, but instead cycles through several different faces, with some variations in orientation. However, it may be tricky to find all of the faces!

IMAGE PLACEHOLDER

6-square tetraflexagons suggest several different possibilities:

• iteration, loops, and cycles
• forking paths
• things that tumble and change orientation, like a kaleidoscope
• things that meet at edges
• pieces that recombine
• things that remain hidden or difficult to find

Download 6-Square Tetraflexagon Instructions

7-Faced Tetraflexagon

This form has seven faces, each consisting of four squares. If you use the template, each face will have four of the same number on it (four 7s, four 6s, etc.). As you manipulate the flexagon, you’ll see that the orientation of those four squares can change, relative to each other, and also the path by which you access the different faces can vary.

7-faced tetraflexagons suggest different possibilities:

• mirror images that change their relationship
• sequences that get disrupted
• whole images or texts that are sectioned into pieces
• individual images or texts that come together in quasi-kaleidoscopic ways

Download 7-Faced Tetraflexagon Instructions