The World of 182×257 | Designing B5 Magazine Supplements and Pop-Ups

182×257 mm: there was a job that meant pressing magazine-supplement ideas into the fixed world of a B5 sheet.

These were monthly magazines with print runs in the millions or hundreds of thousands. If an idea extended beyond B5, I had to make it fold at the B5 boundary or make the move to B4 worthwhile as a “deluxe something.” The task was not simply to shrink an object, but to find a proposal that worked within the constraint.

Turning an idea into something that could be estimated

At the time, I prepared three proposals for each of two magazines. Saying, “Oh no, it’s already the end of the month,” I would develop six to ten ideas in one or two weeks and narrow them down to six.

Selection was not the finish line. Those six proposals became six estimate drawings, six color samples, and twelve white samples. There were twelve white samples because we needed both retained copies and copies for estimating and production.

Each assignment took an idea through to drawings and physical samples that could be used for estimating and manufacturing review.

“I want to add a pop-up to B5”

An inquiry brought that work back to mind:

I want to add a pop-up to B5.

So I gave the possible forms temporary names before I forgot them. For some reason, it is always the designer who came up with the idea who also gives it the odd working name…

One-part pop-up

• Fan
• Zigzag
• Half-fan
• Table

Room pop-up

• One room
• Two rooms
• Three rooms
• Four rooms

For another project assembled from printed sheets, see the Popikko Delivery Play Set case study. Its two modified-A4, four-panel Z-fold sections contain a delivery bike, menus, and food to assemble.

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