Written by Roos Giethoorn / Graphic Design Festival 2010 publication #2

We live in a time, where the digital revolution has caused people to turn away from one of the most important and versatile materials in the world, where book publishers have to redefine their relation to paper books, where the postal service will deliver the mail only 3 days a week and where kids have shitty handwriting because they no longer have to write to their grandparents. It is in times like these that artists turn around and do the opposite by redefining the possibilities of this powerful material called Paper. 

It is the same digital revolution that has caused an overwhelming wave of information that has been put to use without needing the original context. Because of this artists mix and match information, materials and even disciplines. You no longer need to spend days in a library going through books and books to discover that one little thing that might inspire you to make that amazing artwork. You don’t need to study product design to make your 2d design 3d, you don’t need to stay between the borders of what graphic design is said to be and you don’t need to be an illustrator to draw.

Nowadays artists and designers have a need to figure out what makes that grass greener and check the Internet to find out, or even better, figure it out in their own backyard. By breaking down the fence designers increased their playground. And by reinventing the use of paper they brought back the playfulness in design and brought it to new artistic heights.  

When put in a room with cardboard and duck tape it doesn’t take long for Peter Lundgren from Sweden to get started. With his 3 dimensional, geometrical and abstract line drawings in mind and cardboard in his hand he starts to freestyle. Later that day Peter was caught playing with an earthworm that was crawling across the room.

It is a relief being away from the computer, he says. Peter feels limited by technical stuff and finds freedom in tape and cardboard. He doesn’t like to work in small details. Cardboard is hard to work with and it is a challenge to make something perfect. Peter likes the analog feel, the old techniques and the hard work that he puts in these projects. In his head he connects the different elements of his work and makes it work within the limitations of these two materials.

Peter usually doesn’t work much with cardboard even though this is the thing that he has mainly been approached for. Peter is a designer that works with a lo-fi and curious vision from which he likes to explore animation, graphic design and illustration by mixing crayons, cutout paper, cardboard and computer-based animation. This lo-fi approach is characteristic within a new stream of designers. Lo-fi is a term used to describe music in which the sound is of a lower quality than the usual standard. But not all of the work shown in Papercut has a lo-fi approach, in the contrary. 

Papercut showed a selection of works that covers the variety of techniques that are being explored when it comes making Art and Design with paper. A collection of Papertoys from various international designers and a life-size paper reproduction of an anti-aircraft gun by Postlerferguson (GB) are shown next to the very delicate hand cut artworks from Hina Aoyama (JP).

It is because of all these new and innovative visions, attitudes and ideas from the explorers from artistic disciplines ranging from character design, urban art, fine art, graphic design, illustration, fashion, animation and film, that this exciting new development in contemporary design is evolving so rapidly.

Copyright 2010 Roos Giethoorn