"I like how simply and surprisingly this piece pops up from the standard flat business card format." - Rob Kelly, Rob Kelly Design
Paper engineer and graphic designer Rob Kelly had a single goal when he set out to create a business card for his wife, interior designer Rosemary Kelly: “I wanted to transform the familiar business card form into a freestanding desk piece.”
Kelly’s solution came in the form of a flat, 2x3.5˝ card that pops open to become a sofa adorned with a throw pillow — just in case the initial pop-up isn’t enough to delight those who receive it. Kelly worked with ADMC to digitally print 200 cards on Carolina 100 lb. Cover White C2S. The printed cards were diecut and then hand assembled.
“I was able to fit this multiple times out on a form for economy, and I included 12 different ‘pillow’ art variations,” Kelly explains. “The pillow component is snapped in as the last step in the assembly process.”
Kelly says that through this project he learned there’s still a desire and appreciation for "wow factor" pieces that are hand assembled from paper. “Everyone who got one has reportedly been quite likely to keep it open on their desk.”
Sabine Lenz is the founder of PaperSpecs.com, the first online paper database and community specifically designed for paper specifiers.
Growing up in Germany, Sabine started her design career in Frankfurt, before moving to Australia and then the United States. She has worked on design projects ranging from corporate identities to major road shows and product launches. From start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, her list of clients included Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Deutsche Bank, IBM and KPMG.
Seeing designers struggle worldwide to stay current with new papers and paper trends inspired Sabine to create PaperSpecs, an independent and comprehensive Web-based paper database and weekly e-newsletter. She is also a speaker on paper issues and the paper industry. Some refer to her lovingly as the "paper queen" who combines her passion for this wonderful substrate called paper with a hands-on approach to sharing her knowledge.