The man behind the modern pop-up book, Waldo “Wally” Hunt, has died at age 88. Hunt, a Los Angeles advertising executive, sold his company and traveled to New York, where he became disenchanted. He was charmed by a pop-up book imported from Czechoslovakia. “I knew I’d found the magic key,” he told the L.A. Times in 2002. “No one was doing pop-ups in this country.” Hunt’s first pop-up company was so successful that Hallmark purchased it. Then Hunt returned west and started another company — making pop-up books, of course.
Check out this LA Times blog, and particularly the wonderful video of “ABC3D,” a design favorite of 2008–wonderful book (maybe not the best for libraries, but a unique book for sure).
last rites
The viewing at this funeral is going to scare the living shit out of at least one person.