Finding a new business model
“Although the print industry may appear moribund, viewers tend to spend more time absorbing print media than they do digital media. When you add aesthetic design and 3D effects to print, it creates a different kind of attention economics and gives you a business model,” argues Lin.
The two women realized that if 3D paper art were enlarged by ten or 20 times and displayed in a space, viewers could walk inside. Such a structure would function as a different kind of art venue, one that could be integrated with augmented or virtual reality technology to create a virtual environment.
“We are actively seeking to develop paper design into our brand,” says Huang. “We currently have two directions we want to go in. The first involves integrating paper arts into commercial design. The second involves cooperating with Taiwan’s traditional paper makers.” Huang adds that they exhibited at Creative Expo Taiwan this year, and were inspired by the strides other nations have been making in this area. They hope to develop paper structures into a variety of products, including decorative lamp shades, vases, and fashion accessories. But they have an even bigger ambition: they want to create a mobile arts platform that wraps paper arts into local culture, and plan to begin in Taichung to enable the city’s residents to get better acquainted with their own local culture.
In addition to taking on commercial projects, Todo has also been involved with several public art projects. In one case last year, the studio took part in the creative shop sign project curated by the National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute, which attracted a great deal of attention during its exhibition at the Huashan 1914 Creative Park in Taipei.
Starting a business is hard work. Huang and Lin founded their company with only NT$100,000 in capital, took salaries of only NT$10,000 per month, ran into numerous cash flow problems, and had projects popping up at awkward times. Nowadays, they often find themselves working into the wee hours, so busy that they sometimes sleep in the office. But no matter how late they work they always make themselves begin again at ten the following day.
They joke, “The more our business grows, the less we argue. We used to argue every other day. Now it’s only once a week or so. We keep telling ourselves that we have to keep up the pace because we’ve only got a ten-year window to succeed.”
When they have a difference of opinion, one of them has to talk the other one around to her view.
In spite of all of the challenges they continue to face, they remain committed to the belief that paper will remain viable as a medium, and that it will not only put forth new shoots, but will also be rejuvenated.
With their creative and cultural venture, Huang and Lin have found new ways to use paper as a medium, incorporating pop-ups of traditional pastries into a book and applying the paper arts to packaging.
With their creative and cultural venture, Huang and Lin have found new ways to use paper as a medium, incorporating pop-ups of traditional pastries into a book and applying the paper arts to packaging.
Lin and Huang’s pop-up books require a great deal of precision to produce. They first draft the complete design, then cut out the pieces of the pop-up structures, and finally glue the parts together.
Paper structures have business potential in a variety of areas. Huang (left) and Lin are hoping to create a unique brand and believe that printed books will live on in the digital era.