The History Of Origami - (Tips + Stories)

Origami is an ancient Japanese art form although it is suggested that the Chinese had originally invented it because of the fact that they had access to an ancient form of paper. It comes from the Japanese words 'ori' and 'kami'. 'ori' meaning 'to fold' and 'kami' meaning 'paper'


There are many different forms of origami, probably the best known is 'action origami' which is mainly what has been posted on this blog. this consists of a model that either has a purpose or can perform something in some way. For example, the flapping bird very clearly flaps its wings when its tail is pulled.


Another common form of origami is modular origami is modular origami, also known as 3d origami. This is when lots of smaller 'modules' are made out of separate pieces and fitted together to form the final object, I have created these before but they can often become tiresome as it can be really repetitive. As well as this, this would not be defined as 'pure origami' as 'pure origami' is when the model is solely constructed from one piece of paper. Another form of origami that is not 'pure' is kirigami which is origami where cuts are allowed. In traditional 'pure origami' no cutting of the paper is allowed.


Origami paper is widely sold, even though printer or copier paper paper is fine. Origami paper tends to give you a slightly richer experience as it is slightly thinner and creases better, allowing it to be used in a variety of ways more. All the same, for the basic models attempted on here, it is perfectly okay that printer paper is used so long as it is square when required.


Towards the beginning of the 20th century, much more elaborate models were created mainly down to the the fact that certain people would look at the mathematical ways in which the paper could be folded. This meant rather than trying to work out just by folding how to create a model, mathematicians could calculate and simulate how to make particular types of models. These tend to be much more advanced shapes which are often 3 dimensional.