RESEARCH
Yusuke Oona, born in Germany in 1983, is an architect as well as a designer-engineer who graduated from The University of Tokyo where he obtained both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Architecture. He is the recipient of the “Art Directors Club of New York” and has received many other awards. He works primarily as an architect at noiz architects, an architectural design firm based in Tokyo and Taipei. He is also active in other related fields including interior product design and art installation.
Apart from working at noir architects, as a designer, he released his own works, starting with the “Wellpecker” followed by the “360 degree book” which won the highest prize for the International Competition “You Fab 2012”. His online portfolio on loftwork focuses on his 360° BOOK project starting from the process to the finalised one published which was the 360° BOOK for Mount Fuji and Snow White. It all started because he was and is still very keen in finding new ways to express dimension. He was thinking beyond 2D flat surfaces when one is creating a book. For this project he utilised 3D modelling technology and digital fabrication methods such as laser-cutting and 3D printing.
The 360° BOOK is really a unique and revolutionary invention that enables readers to view a panoramic 3D world. The 40-paged book opens and expands into a dynamic circle of pages. Each page is finely crafted making the overall book detailed and beautiful enough to be made as a gift or even as a decoration for a room.
360° BOOK - Mount Fuji
360° BOOK - Christmas
Yusuke Oona impresses me with his creativity and originality because evidently, when you search for 360° BOOK on the internet, his works will be at the top of the results. What impresses me most is the fact that he has created a whole new form of how a book can be. This meant that the ideas and possibilities for storytelling and design that can be portrayed in the form of the 360° BOOK, will be endless! Which is probably why this project is still ongoing since, well, how can you end it when there’s so much more that can be explored and experimented? Really interesting designer. I never knew that the 360° BOOK existed until I researched about him today. Honestly I can go on and on about how genius this design is. As a child, I myself tend to test the limit of a book and bend it such that it’ll form a circle of pages. Rebellious. This is what I’ll describe the the form of the 360° BOOK.
It is true that the 360° BOOK for Mount Fuji and Snow White are being mass produced with the help of machines like laser-cutters. However, it all started with first designing the layouts of each book by hand and with the aid of design programs. After watching the videos of paper artists at work, I learned that in order to complete a work of paper craft, we’d definitely need to have a lot of patience and persistence. Yusuke Oona has awed me with his ability to hand craft the 360° BOOK during the early stages of this project. Honestly, you can’t really tell the difference between those that were hand-crafted and those that were laser-cut and that really goes to show the time, effort and cutting skills that have been put into each 360° BOOK that he created.
References:
Seigensha Art Publishing, Inc, 2015. 360° BOOK [Online]. Available from: http://www.seigensha.com/sp/360book/ [Accessed: 5 May, 2016]
Loftwork Inc, 2016. Yusuke Oono’s Profile [Online]. Available from: http://www.loftwork.com/members/oonoyusuke/profile/ [Accessed: 5 May, 2016]
Nathaniel Smith, 2016. Yusuke Oono’s 360° Handcut Pop-Up Books [Online]. Available from: http://beautifuldecay.com/2014/01/20/yusuke-oonos-360-handcut-pop-books/ [Accessed: 5 May, 2016]
PRACTICE ONE
Behold my attempt at creating a simple mountain into a 360° Book...
The process
