Making/Using a paper fortune teller.

Whilst I think it's a good idea that has a great deal of room to work with, there's two things I don't know/can't remember: 1.How to make the thing. 2.How to use it once it's made.
This video solves the first problem


And thank wikipedia for the second answer:
"A cootie catcher or a fortune teller (sometimes called a scrunchie and a chatterbox in Australia), is an origami device used in fortune-telling games by children. A player asks a question, and the holder of the device answers using a regular algorithm like the examples below. Usually the questions, answers, colors and/or numbers (depending upon the playing method) are added to the device by or to suit the user.

There are several different methods by which the device can be used, most of which use the following pattern of steps:

The player first asks a question to the person holding the fortune teller. This question will be answered by the device. The holder then asks for a number and/or color. Once the number and/or color has been chosen, the holder uses his/her fingers to switch between the two groups of colors/numbers that occupy the inside area of the device. The holder switches these positions a specific number of times, which can be given by the amount of letters in the color selected, the number originally chosen, or the sum of both. Once the holder has finished switching the positions of the fortune teller, the player chooses one of the flaps that has been revealed. These flaps often have colors and/or numbers on them, and the chosen flap often is the same as the color/number originally chosen. The holder then lifts the flap and reads the fortune that is underneath. Any one of these steps may be repeated to suit the user.

These devices can be "rigged" by the placement of only even numbers on one "position" and only odd numbers on the other, resulting in forced placement to an even position. In this rigged version, bad fortunes are placed under all the even flaps and good fortunes under all the odd ones, so that when an unwitting player complains that they always get bad fortunes, the fortune teller can expose all the fortunes and claim that the high repeat rate is the fault of the player and not the device."

how can this be applied to what I'm doing? Well the opening question could be "Where do my politics lie?" the numbers/colours could then be replaced by different archetypes/stereotypes of the Obama persona, each one based on an opinion from somewhere on the scale from the far right-wing to the far left-wing. The flap underneath would then reveal their political inclination. This is just an initial theory of how it could work, I think through on-going design I will reach a conclusion as to how it could work.

Packaging Research.

Now I've nailed my concept, which will be on my design practice blog shortly, I decided to put together some ideas for packaging and what my product could be. I had a crit with Justin today, I basically outlined the idea that Obama is good because people can attach their own symbol to him, be it change (good or bad), hope, marxism, defeat, hype etc. and how I want to package Obama in these different ways. Justin suggested that what I was packaging and indeed the packaging it's self should be incredibly interactive to represent changeability of both what he can represent and indeed his own mantra of change. I agreed strongly with this, and he suggested what I've now found is called a paper "fortune teller" that children played with when they were little. I loved this, it was just the inspiration I needed. Below are fortune tellers or cootie "catchers" as those damn yanks call them. Also some wonderful interactive packaging and just some I like.




Cool, no? going to make some mock ups soon. Here's some cool packaging, all of which has something I want to implement.


This is by Sara Strand, They're all full colour and I imagine Litho-printed. I chose it for two reasons,
1. I like it when you print on card and earthy coloured paper stocks with a real grain to them.

2. The use of different colours to represent things seems like it could be very appropriate to my research. Overall the graphics are a bit cutesie for me, but still, nicely printed and again, different colours is something worth exploring.

I chose this Chew'd gum packaging design because I like the very illustratibe style, and illustration is something that I want to keep at the core of my practice. Also it colour codes like the one previously, which again seemed appropriate. Also it uses CMYK to do it, I'm a big fan of those core colours and how they work together.

These next 3 are by Burgopak, who I think just do really inventive packaging that always

seems to have a level of interactivity that goes above just opening a box etc. The one above has a two-way slide mechanism that I thought worked quite effectively. I also like the way the colours work together.

I thought that this was so cool, even though I hate smoking, though I have given it to Craig Laing for his Smoking is good project. I just love the sliding mechanism, I thought it was really

clever, and really thought about the proccess of getting a cigerette out of the packet.

Again, thought this one for the Baftas was just a really nicely packaged thing. I think the word BAFTA is embossed and maybe spot varnished? i don't know, I'll ask about that.

This design by Chris Chapman is a lovely and quirky way to package meet. I like how it uses the same format and varies the graphics to suit the object it contains, it's something to consider for packaging Obama in different ways. Again, I'd say this was Litho and it's full colour because it has photographic shots of meat. There we are.