Yello!

Matthew Lee is a self-taught Malaysian paper engineer and the founder of Matt Made Studios. He started making pop-up greeting cards for friends and then sells the cards. Matt also took part in the Young Art Entrepreneurs programme under Balai Seni Negara.Besides making products, he loves going outdoors, taking street photos, and trying to keep up with the Batman universe.

The Brief
• Gather references and outcome expectations from the client
• Sketching out the mechanics and/or ideasEven though I would try to draw any pictures of what I think the pop-ups look like, there is no guarantee that I can paper engineer what I draw.

Three-dimensional Prototypes
• Research & development
• Mock-ups trials (could go up to 9-10 different variations and small tweaks)This step is the manual task of cut, fold, adding flaps, glueing and testing to begin developing the pop-up mechanisms themselves. I would usually printed out black and white or outline of the artwork before full-colour printing as not to waste the ink.

Artwork (Not included in my service)
• Insert artwork and finalise the mock upOnce the mechanism is approved and working, it's time to add visuals to the template. The artwork needs to be prepared by the clientele.

Production
• Print, crease, and cut by the printer
• Hand-assembly production to packagingAfter the final artwork has been approved and signed by the client, it's time to send it to the printers. All pop-up deliverables are put together completely by hand. This means that I will fold and glue every single pop-up piece into every single card, book, or marketing materials acquire by the brief.