About This Project
This series of dinosaur paper toys was designed for Twinkl in 2017, the set includes 10 models, including 4 smaller designs, the series was designed to scale in difficulty so children of different key stages would be able to build different dinosaurs.
The triceratops, stegosaurus and ankylosaurus were designed to be simple paper crafts, with more rounded out and simplified edges to make construction quick and easy, where as the tyrannosaurus, spinosaurus and pterodactyl were more complex and featured more advanced paper engineering. A single page including three smaller paper toys, the archaeopteryx, deinonychus and dunkleosteus bridge the gap by being simple toys, but on a smaller scale requiring more advanced hand to eye coordination.
The series was designed in a single working week, which will sound impressive to fellow paper toy designers but was a pretty standard turnaround time for the workplace I was in.
Designer
Alex Josephine Gwynne is a graphic designer and paper engineer with over a decade of experience designing paper toys and paper crafts.
Alex has turned their obsession with paper based design into a career designing for a wide verity of clients including game developers, book publishers and educational providers. Their constant drive to create engaging paper products and international exhibition pieces has lead to numerous awards and seen their work featured in news papers, magazines and BBC television. Overall Alex believes in the power of paper as a 3D medium and lives by the mantra “limitation breeds innovation” striving to find elegant solutions to complex problems.
Client
Twinkl is a digital educational publisher, creating digital resources for teachers to use in the classroom with children of all ages.
I worked for Twinkl as a graphic designer and paper engineer for three years creating hundreds of educational paper crafts for use in the classroom and at home. As Twinkl offers the paper crafts as part of their subscription model none of the work I designed whilst with the company are available for download on the Fold Up Toys website, but are available though Twinkl for subscribers.
How To Build
– Download
Click the download button above to receive a .zip folder, inside this you will find the flat template of the paper toy along with a reference photo. Selected Fold Up Toys also include blank versions of the template. Open the flat template in your image viewer/editor of choice and print.
– Print
Print the model onto paper or card, Fold Up Toys recommends a 250gsm card stock for best results, however all models on the Fold Up Toys website should work perfectly well on standard A4 printer paper. On the bottom of the flat template you will see a recommended card stock weight (e.g. 250gsm) for this models specific design.
– Cut
Cut the model out along the solid outline, some models will have sections that need to be cut with a craft knife, younger builders are recommended to get help from an adult.
– Fold
Follow the key on the models flat template, folding up or down along the dotted lines as instructed. Some model builders like to score along the fold lines (go over the lines in advance) with a craft knife or empty ball point pen to get a more precise fold.
– Glue
Most models have numbered tabs, glue the tabs in order to complete the model. If you get stuck, feel free to message the designer using the contact page with a photo of what you’re working on and they’ll be happy to help you.
– Share
Share your creation on social media, it’s always fun to see Fold Up Toys out in the wild. Be sure to share it with the designer @Paperfolderman on Twitter and @folduptoys on Instagram. You can also e-mail a photo to hello@folduptoys.com
Change Log
17/04/2019 – Portfolio item uploaded to FUT website.
