Paper Talk

Paper Talk
Paper Talk
Episode 101: Simon Arizpe
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Simon Arizpe is an award winning pop-up book designer, paper engineer and illustrator based in Brooklyn, NY. His work received the 2018-2019 Meggendorfer Prize, the highest honor in pop-up book design, as well as the Award of Excellence from the Society of Illustrators. A graduate of The Pratt Institute, Arizpe worked for over 10 years as the senior paper engineer at several of the top pop-up book studios in the world before opening his own pop-up book studio in 2014. Working on every aspect of pop-up book design: from concept and engineering to mass production and printing on over 35 projects. Arizpe has also designed several award winning holiday cards for Museum of Modern Art Design Store. In addition to his design work, Arizpe is the professor of paper engineering at The Pratt Institute and  Parsons School of Design in New York City.

We talked about his book House Plants, a book produced in collaboration with photographer Daniel Gordon for The Aperture Photo Foundation. Gordon cut up found imagery of houseplants to create sculptural collages, mixing realistic and fantastical colors for a playful effect, which Arizpe then transformed into six intricate pop-ups. The results are joyful, spectacular and sturdier than the hardiest perennial.
The Central Park Conservancy hired Arizpe to create a promotional piece to bring the park to life through pop-ups. Listen to us talk about how he handled the design and production on a short timeline.

Arizpe’s book Zahhak, The Legend of the Serpent King, won the prestigious Meggendorfer Prize in 2018.

If you are into flexagons, Arizpe created a unique product featuring that structure. I picked one up during his Kickstarter campaign a few years back, and they’re still available. THE WilD Pop-Up: A Link in he Food Chain, is a new form of storytelling that allows the reader to interact with the book in a whole new way.

Simon Arizpe’s recommendations:

  • Arizpe enjoys listening to the Song Exploder Podcast while he works. The show features interviews with musicians, and they deconstruct one of their songs. The talk about the process and hurdles in the creation of their music.
  • Neenah paper Classic Crest, 8.5 x 11 cm, solar white #110 card stock is Arizpe’s go-to paper for models.

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Visit Simon Arizpe’s website to learn more about him, and you can also find him on Instagram.

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Music featuring excerpts of Makin’ Paper folk song by Peter Thomas. Listen to the full song and find out about other paper and book arts folk songs.

Gary A. Hanson did the sound editing for this episode. He practices and refines his skills in audio production while making his own podcast I’ll Have a Beer and Talk, a show about tech news, culture, weird animal stories and of course, beer. Gary is also the Deckle in Pulp & Deckle, a Portland-based community hand papermaking studio.

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