wow im gunna try this challenge ill lose probably
any way my b-days the day after tomorrow and wondered if u guys thought license to fold and craft paper would be a good thing to get :
I'm not a designer, and I'm not sure where I'd start, but the subject is something I would love to try... I might have to work on something anyway. We'll see.
Don't be so pessimistic, grizzly-I for one am working on a design right now, and though it hasn't worked out quite yet, this is a great topic of inspiration. Just be patient. Designs take time.
I've got a pretty ambitious plan for this challenge, I hope I can finish it before the month ends. Just think of it as everyone is putting at least 2 weeks of thought into their model so it looks extra good
I am personally a fan of Ben franklins-I find them...more "aesthetically pleasing"
In all seriousness, though, the shape of the paper doesn't really matter to me. I would say whatever is best for the design goes, but lately I have used squares religiously. I used to fold a lot with dollar bills, but not so much anymore.
The reason we like squares so much is that it imposes technical restrictions-- without which a design challenge is meaningless. If I could start with any shape I wanted, then I could easily design 10 or more models every day; they wouldn't take any time to design at all, just some time to fold. But when I restrict myself to a square, things take longer and I learn more about the paper. Tessellation folders tend to use squares less, I think because in that context the shape of the paper no longer represents much of a technical restriction; I could fold the same tessellation out of any shape of paper, without changing the design very much at all.
Long story short: I use squares because they're more interesting!
It's also useful to have a standard size for the starting paper, for commercial reasons, and that's why squares are now so common, despite the fact that Traditional models were much less strict about it.