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The O and P spread is particularly clever and uses the weight of the paper
rather than any folds, cuts or pivots to achieve transformation. On the right-
hand page the O sits above the P. The reader must pull over a translucent
page from the left on which is printed \ on top of another \. The upper \
covers the bottom right corner of the O to make it a Q, and the lower \ touches
the bowl of the P, transforming it into an R. This all encourages a reader who
knows little about typography to think about how characters share certain
design elements.
The U is a pop-up formed by intricately die-cut paper which
when folded and turned into a pop-up makes it look far more
complicated than it really is. In fact, the whole book is deceptively
simple but seems so clever. It has the effect of a magic act. Pop-
ups are such a pleasure to read because they demand audience
participation. It is the turning of the page, the reader’s own
energy, that brings the book to life. Very rarely is paper used to its
full potential. Normally paper is mostly just a surface on which to
carry and store information—a servile agent to words and images.
With pop-ups energy is released that otherwise lies dormant.
Bataille graduated in Graphic Design from L’Ecole Supérieure d’Arts
Graphiques in Paris in 1988. “It was a kind of convent, very conservative,
nothing but work, but I made good friends.” She then came to live in England,
worked as a photographer and did a pop-up book that was shown in a
gallery in London. “It was very much like this one but was not an alphabet.”
She then returned to Paris. Over the last decade much of her work has been
as an illustrator, mainly designing covers for novels by renowned Parisian
publishing houses.
Bataille describes her design influences as Ed Ruscha, Tadanori
Yokoo, the Bauhaus, Milton Glaser and El Lissitzky. “I am mainly
interested in typography when it crosses sound, photography and
architecture,” she says. The first version of the ABC3D was handmade
by herself and shown in a gallery called Les Trois Ourses—a gallery
that often puts on exhibitions of book art. She also created further
copies which were sold to public libraries and collectors in France
and abroad. French publishing company Albin Michel saw the
book exhibited in the gallery and offered to publish it. It is now being
published in nine countries including Germany (Carlsen), Britain
(Bloomsbury), Spain (Kokinos), USA (Roaring Brook), Israel (Daniella
De-Nur), Italy (Corraini), Japan (Dainippon Kaiga) and the
Netherlands (Querido).
Despite her success in getting published internationally, Bataille doesn’t
think it’s possible to make a living creating such books alone. Let’s hope she’s
wrong—after all, Britain’s own Ron van der Meer became a millionaire
creating pop-up books that could appeal to both children and adults alike.
Van der Meer’s books on specialist subjects such as architecture, music
and psychology have been international bestsellers and are collected by
fans throughout the world. A flat page of a seemingly normal book can be
lifted and turned to reveal the three dimensions of a sailing ship, an orchestra,
a volcano or the Sydney Opera House. Of course, full of words and other
imagery and chock-a-block with information, they are very different from
Bataille’s minimal little book.
Bataille’s own paper engineering heroes include 1950s Czech
designer Vojtech Kubasta, who created pop-ups that were like
little theatres, and New York-based Robert Sabuda, who is
known for his highly imaginative children’s pop-up books as well
as his beautiful Christmas cards for the Museum of Modern Art.
ABC3D is published in the
UK by Bloomsbury
Let’s hope she follows in the footsteps of the pop-up greats and we see more
of her work in the future. There are not enough designers out there mixing the
www.bloomsbury.com potential of paper engineering with such good graphic taste.
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