Pop-up books have always fascinated us, their intricate folds going from flat to alive, bringing a tiny bit of magic into our days. So this giant pop-up book by James Gulliver Hancock is extra special. Taking two people to open and flip through, this book has an enormous scale which makes it entirely hilarious and unwieldy, but also very cool. The illustration style is playful and inviting.
This large scale pop-up is so large it’s considered a sculpture, and was created for ACU University to promote alumni achievements. The project was produced with Paperform, Scoundrel Projects, and Yipeekiyay.
Hancock is an Australian illustrator best known for his obsessive city drawings, including the book All the Buildings in New York, and the same loose, cheerful line runs through every page here. The book, titled Impact Through Empathy, was built for Australian Catholic University, and the scenes show graduates at work as nurses, teachers and counselors. Making a pop-up at this size is a real engineering problem. The paper mechanisms that snap a card-sized scene upright have to be redesigned in heavy board, with hidden supports, so that a page taller than a person can open flat and stand without sagging.
Paper engineering at every scale is a favorite subject of ours. See a historical collection of found paper airplanes, Eiko Ojala’s cut paper art, the notepad that reveals a castle as you tear off sheets, and The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.
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