The real designer knows when to hold and when to fold

One of the things you really have to learn ‘as you go’ is designing with folds. There really is only one way of creating a perfect design with folds in it: Designing, printing, getting out the scissors and probably re-designing) . Only with a dummy-shape in your hand can you really see what will happen when you actually fold your design. And if you’re new to this – or just in a hurry – you are likely to make little mistakes. But if you’ve got InDesign there is an automated way to produce folds with little or almost no effort.

It’s a plugin called FOLD Rite and it lets you create all kinds of InDesign documents with folds. The interface is quite smart. It shows you what you want to create and can even animate the end result before you save the template. Check out the flash demo.

FoldFactory also hosts a blog and a forum. The print geek in me actually thinks it’s pretty cool to host a blog and forum just about folding. But the way they set it up makes no sense what so ever. Yes, it could be interesting, but both the blog and forum are hidden. Only registered members can view it’s content. Now why would I go through al the trouble of registering without knowing if it’s worth while? It also took me some searching to find the login after I registered. I kept coming back to the ‘Register’ page. I couldn’t find the login because it’s located at the top of the page in the dark part of the header. Not exactly where I expected it to be… The subject of folding and designing is interesting enough. There’s really no need to hide it all.

If you haven’t got any budget and want to do some fancy designing with a die cut and folds you could also ask your printer what kind of shapes with folds he’s got in his archive. Almost all printers keep a digital copy of all their (die-cut shapes with) folds. Over the years most printers build up quite an archive. All you need to do is ask.

The only thing you need to keep in mind using both the FOLDRite templates or your own handcrafted shapes is the thickness of the paper. It is possible your creation won’t ‘fit’ or close if the paper’s too thick. I would recommend asking your printer to provide you with a few paper-samples so you can create a dummy-shape and be 100% sure. After all: folding the paper is better than folding your hands and hoping everything will print fine.