Thank you, Franz Zeier

Paper Constructions, Franz Zeier, 1980 and Creative Packaging, Paul Jackson, 2022

Two fabulous books arrived in today’s mail. I had ordered this Franz Zeier Paper Construction weeks ago when I had stumbled upon this reasonably priced copy weeks ago. The other one I ordered just days ago after reading Helen Hiebert’s review in her newsletter.

It was hard to try to pick out which one to look at first.

What is fun about seeing Franz Zeier’s work is noticing how his deep explorations, more than half a century ago, still seem fresh. His name doesn’t come up much in the paper world, but his work is embedded everywhere in works with paper.

Zeier, page 54; Jackson, page 98

The participants in my recent class, Realm of Solids at Center for Book Arts, know that I am a big fan of cubes. It’s great having images from these two designers that explore cubes in ways that are both similar and different.

From the German published book, Papier by Franz Zeier, 1974 Page 213

Above are some of Zeier’s cubes, and below are Paul Jacksons.

Creative Packaging, Paul Jackson, Page 110

Below, more of Zeier’s work.

A big difference between the constructions created by Zeier and Jackson is that Zeier is more interested in the forms themselves, as closed polyhedron, while Jackson exploits the forms as packaging solutions,, hence they open up.

While I’m talking about packaging solutions, here’s another book in my library that is great fun to look through.

The Packaging Designer’s Book of Patterns, Laszlo Roth and George L Wybenga, 1991

This book is filled with nets (templates) of boxes that are folded from a single sheet. Here’s one that caught my fancy today.

The Packaging Designers Book of Patterns, Page 231 (this book is nearly 500 pages long)

Notice the closure of the form above: it’s’s a ring that slips on to the top of the pyramid.

But I digress.

I am so in awe of Franz Zeier’s work. There’s only book of his that is widely available in the US, which Cathryn Miller reviewed in 2017. While there’s no question that the way Zeier writes about constructing forms in the book Cathryn reviewed had a huge impact on me, it’s this book, written in German, that made me realize how indebted the paper world is to him.

Papier, Franz Zeier, 1974

For the longest time, although I was awed looking through Papier, I was also frustrated by not being able to understand a word of the German text. Turns out the Paper Constructions book, while not as lengthy as Papier (has fewer photos) it has all the text of Papier translated into English (yay! ).

Here’s another artist who, it appears, has been influenced by Franz Zeier: the inventive and fabulous Matthew Shlian