Back to trying out the structures in Making Handmade Books, continuing with the Books That Move chapter with Flexagons – Square, Tetra Tetra and Cross. I think I’d already done the Square one, but it was fun to do it again, and it has a matryoshka-like property – the drop is also square so it can be used to make another Square Flexagon!
I’m not sure where the Tetra Tetra got its name, and I had a bit of a false start, as I didn’t read the instructions closely enough, and, after having made the Square, I figured you cut the center out completely. NO! Then when I tried again I didn’t trim the page down to get equal rows, which, after I after-the-fact fudge trimmed it, I looked at the Variations AND! you can have different height rows! The columns have to be the same width, but the rows can be different. So then I had to try one that way.
The Cross required a bit of glueing, which I may not have gotten in quite the right spot the first time, but figured out. In contrast to the other two, it changes shapes as you flip through. I was really scratching my head as to how someone would come up with this structure in the first place – I had a hard enough time making one following instructions – how does someone figure it out without???
Anyway, they were all fun to make, and it might be just the thing for some of the pages in my stacks of printed material… I worry about it seeming gimmicky and distracting from the content though. I think this is a case where form and content need to be really well matched.
2m2t 
Yeah I did a flex again, one of the basic ones and wed the content I thought fairly well to the to the form, but I didn’t like it because everyinrpe needed user instructions, not that soon enough folks won’t need them for all regular paper books!
ah yes – I like the idea of user interaction with the form, but not so much the having to explain/give directions… good thing to consider.
Ha! Flexigon is what I said, and meant!