Google pays tribute to origami father

Google has marked the 101st anniversary of the birth of Akira Yoshizawa, widely considered to be the father of modern origami, by recreating the search engine's logo from folded paper.

Yoshizawa reinvented the tradition Japanese folk art of origami and over his career created tens of thousands of works and pioneered many of the techniques used by modern artists.


He invented the technique of wet-folding, which allowed the use of thick papers and created soft surves and rounded-organic forms.

Google asked Robert Lang, a Californian origami artist, to create a three-dimensional Google logo to mark the birth of Yoshizawa.


"I jumped at the chance," said Mr Lang. "Google set the parameters of the design: the Google logo, of course, but to be folded with origami and then decorated with examples of Yoshizawa's design."


"I created examples of two logo styles for Google to choose from: one in a classic origami style and a more three-dimensional version based on pleats. Google liked the pleated version, so I set about designing and folding the rest.

The pleats are created by arranging multiple copies of a single design on a large rectangle of paper.

"The resulting crease pattern is moderately complex, and it gives a lovely 3-D form when folded, but conceptually, it is quite straightforward," said Mr Lang.

"The butterflies in the doodle are folded from one of Yoshizawa's earliest, yet most iconic designs. It is deceptive in its simplicity, but can express great subtlety in its shaping and attitude. The combination of simplicity and depth is part of the essence of origami, and is key to Yoshizawa's work and legacy."

Source: Telegraph