Graphic designer traces cities with paper sculpture
- By Qin Qi
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E-mail China.org.cn, August 2, 2019
Beside photos and souvenirs, how would you preserve the memories of traveling to your beloved cities? Zhang Junjie, a graphic designer from Beijing and a travel enthusiast, invites you to collect his paper sculpture maps of cities.
Zhang is the owner of O3 Design Studio, whose popular paper sculpture maps are being exhibited at WF Central, a high-end shopping center in Beijing.
According to Zhang, his work is inspired by a friend who has great passion for collecting and making hand-drawn maps. Zhang decided to integrate the elements of maps with the traditional handicraft, paper sculpture.
Compared to the traditional paper sculpture, Zhang said his maps combine machine techniques and handcraft, because the degree of accuracy they demand is impossible by hand.The product also requires a specific type of paper material, and a Japanese fiber paper was selected after many experiments.
The process of making paper sculpture is a test of both skill and patience.
Hand drawing of the maps is the first step, which Zhang takes upon entirely on his own. In the drawing, he attempts to show every symbolic site of a city, including the roads and corners. He said it is usually hard to reflect the details of smaller cities because of the concentrated urban structures.
Zhang spent almost three months drawing the map of Tokyo, which he said was one of the most challenging cities. "I tried to gather every single route from different map sources and rank them in terms of importance," he said.
After machine processing, the final touch on the paper craft is the careful removal of the machine's burn marks by hand, which requires a great deal of patience and finesse.
Speaking of the delicacy in his process, Zhang said, "I could imagine myself working to repair cultural relics in the Forbidden City."
As he watched people stopping in front of his work to look for specific cities, Zhang said he was happy to be able to help them retrace their memories in a new way.
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