It is common for paper artists to “bind” their artworks into “artist books” – a broad display category that ranges from purely decorative through linear narrative forms, and everything in-between. Having recently made a linear design using cyanotype, inks and paint, it occurred to me that a book-like thing might be a fun way to display it.

Traditional “artist books”, in my observation at least, involve cutting, gluing, sometimes stitching and binding. I wondered if something could be achieved using FOLDS alone.

One “type” of artist book that I know of is a thing called a “Concertina Book”, sometimes including cut and folded “extrusions” which elevate parts of the page. I figured something like this should be possible using folding techniques, so took a scrap of paper and began a fold doodle with a simple fan fold.

Using a pair of pleats running across the fan fold gives me pleat overlaps that can then become “gussets” that then force layers up and off the resting surface in interesting ways. This makes “extrusions” that change the dimensionality of the shape.

Exploring proportions, it seems that N:1 (where N is a whole number 2 or more) works well as the divisions are based on 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 and 1/16 etc. Adding internal “gussets” lets you control how many extrusions you form, and how deep they are. I like that you can decide this easily, while still providing a surface to display an artwork in interesting segmented ways.

I like the 3×1 size, it provides the potential to control the book-like structure and gives you a large collection of “pages. The structure, when stretched out, stands stably by itself and, interestingly, provides “end papers” that make it suitable to be stuck into a cover.

I think this is an original design, and I think it is similar to a more traditional concertina book – what do you think?