Pop-Up · Paper Engineering · Photography

9-TEEN

A handcrafted pop-up book using photographic imagery, paper-cut silhouettes, and sculptural paper engineering — exploring identity, place, and scale through the architecture of Flushing Meadows’ Unisphere.

Designer

Jack Murray

Timeline

2022

Medium

Pop-Up Book,
CT Photography

Deliverables

Handcrafted Book,
Typography, Pop-Ups

The Brief

9-TEEN is a handmade pop-up book that uses photographic imagery and paper engineering to create three-dimensional narratives from flat pages. The project merges CT scan imagery, architectural photography of New York’s Unisphere, and hand-cut silhouette figures into a sculptural book form — bound in a silver metallic cover.

Each spread transforms when opened, with pop-up mechanisms bringing photographic scenes to life. The book explores the relationship between the human figure and monumental architecture, placing silhouettes against expansive landscapes that dwarf and frame them.

Concept

The title 9-TEEN speaks to the threshold of adulthood — a moment of standing at the edge of something vast, looking up. The Unisphere, a relic of the 1964 World’s Fair, becomes a recurring symbol: a monument to possibility built from steel and ambition, now standing quietly in Queens.

The silhouette figures are deliberately anonymous — cut from dark card stock, they could be anyone. One holds their arms up to the sky; another stands with a camera on a tripod. They are observers, participants, and stand-ins for the viewer.

Process

The book was constructed entirely by hand. Each pop-up mechanism was prototyped in plain card before being transferred to photographic prints. The Unisphere was photographed from multiple angles to create panoramic and perspective-shifted compositions that fold and rise from the page.

Silhouette figures were hand-cut from dark card stock and integrated into the pop-up structures, creating layered scenes with depth and narrative. The silver metallic cover was chosen to echo the Unisphere’s stainless steel surface, grounding the book’s material language in its subject.

“Standing at the edge of something vast, looking up.”

9-TEEN

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