Paper chase

What's your favourite kind of paper? A classy 250 gsm uncoated stock? A smooth 180 gsm gloss? Or is it something more unusual like a revive 50:50 silk? To some people, it might just be a roll of compressed, moistened cellulose pulp, but to designers, paper is a subject worth getting worked up about.

The choice of paper stock for any creative job is important, but for a new breed of illustrators and designers paper has become even more central to the creative process. In fact, it's become the central creative process. As the software industry struggles in the face of the ongoing recession, and design agencies look for ways to scale down, save money and get back to a more authentic way of working, hands-on creativity has never been as important. And nowhere has that hands-on design aesthetic been as pure, innovative and downright charming as in the work of designers re-exploring the simple medium of folding and cutting paper. From magazine design to mainstream advertising, uptown art galleries to street level character creation, designers who can flex skills using paper folds, scalpels and glue are much in demand. You may remember this as origami; now it's called paper engineering.

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The Creative Bloq team is made up of a group of design fans, and has changed and evolved since Creative Bloq began back in 2012. The current website team consists of eight full-time members of staff: Editor Georgia Coggan, Deputy Editor Rosie Hilder, Ecommerce Editor Beren Neale, Senior News Editor Daniel Piper, Editor, Digital Art and 3D Ian Dean, Tech Reviews Editor Erlingur Einarsson and Ecommerce Writer Beth Nicholls and Staff Writer Natalie Fear, as well as a roster of freelancers from around the world. The 3D World and ImagineFX magazine teams also pitch in, ensuring that content from 3D World and ImagineFX is represented on Creative Bloq.