Intro

        You may have heard of origami, but you probably did not look deep into origami. In this essay, I will tell you about the origami history, the importance of origami, and the different types of origami. You may just learn the importance of origami, so now let's get started to the essay.

1. History

        You may wonder how origami was started, and when and where it was invented, Well... when the paper was invented in China around 105 A.D., it was brought to Japan by monks in the sixth century. Back then, the handmade paper was a luxury item only available to a few people. In ancient Japan, paper folding was strictly for ceremonial occasions, it’s often religious in nature. 

Later, during the Edo period around 1603-1868, paper folding in Japan had become recreational as well as ceremonial. It was regarded as a new form of art that was enabled by the advent of both mass-produced and more affordable. Instructions for paper folding first appeared in 1797, with Akisato Rito’s “thousand crane folding” or Sembazuru Orikata, and later on, it built up with tons of origami instructions. Europe also had a tradition for paper folding in the twelfth century, when the moors brought mathematically based folding to Spain. 

Akira Yoshizawa is a famous Origamist mostly known to be the grandmaster of origami. He made a craft to living art, it is also really crazy that he made more than 50,000 models in 1989. Sadly he died in 2005 at age 94,  he is considered one of the Ancestors of modern origami, He made a system of folding patterns using a set of symbols, and arrows in the 1930s. These patterns were made widely available for people later on in the 1950s. These days we have gone so far with everything, especially with origami,  and now, at this day origami has expanded to include advanced and fancy theories. You may wonder why its called origami: origami itself is a mixture of two small Japanese words: the word “ori” means to fold and the word “kami means paper. Origami used to have a lot of different names for it, but the word “Origami” is used more often because it is easier for young children to write.

The inventor of the kindergartens, Friedrich Frobel recognized paper folding as teaching aids for child development in the early 19th century. As the Kindergarten system spread through Europe and also into the rest of the world. Josef Albers, the father of modern color theory, taught origami in the 1920s and 30s at a design school. His fancy methods of having sheets of round paper that were folded into spirals and curved shapes have brought more modern origami artists.        



1. Different types 

        There are many different types of origami you probably have never heard of, so right now you are going to learn 7 unique types of origami  

#1. Action origami

        You may think that origami is just a plain old still paper sculpture, but think again, There can be origami designs that can move in a clever way. There can be some designs that can flap wings, fly, etc. While you were reading this you probably asked yourself, “how does it fly?” well I was thinking the same thing: it needs kinetic energy from someone's hands, applied at a certain region on the design, to move a flap  

#2. Modular origami 

        You may have heard of modular origami because I just showed you a picture of it at the end of the first chapter, but now in this chapter, I’ll tell you more about modular origami. Of course, modular origami consists of putting a number of identical pieces together to make a complete model. Making the separate pieces can be very easy, but putting it together to complete the model is the most tricky part.

#3. Wet-Folding

        In my opinion, I think this type of origami is one of the coolest and most helpful technique in origami. Wet-folding is a technique for making models with very gentle curves instead of having straight folds and flat surfaces. The paper is dampened up so so it can be molded easily, later when the wet paper becomes dry the folds would be crisp and hard. Professional origamists use wet folding very often for non-geometric origami. Wet folders usually use thicker paper rather than normal origami paper, to ensure than the paper does not rip.   

#4. Pureland Origami 

        Pureland origami is supposed to help inexperienced folders with only simple mountain, and valley folds and all folds must have straightforward locations. it was developed by John Smith in the 1970s. Some designers also like the challenge of creating within the very strict constraints.     

#5.Tessellations

        You may wonder what this fancy word is: Tessellation, what a fun word to say, well A tessellation is periodic shapes that have a repeating pattern. In origami tessellations, pleats are used to connect folds such as twist folds together in a repeating fashion. Chris Palmer is an artist who has extensively explored tessellations after seeing the Zilij patterns in the Alhambra, and has found ways to create detailed origami tessellations out of silk. Robert Lang and Alex Bateman are two designers who use computer programs to create origami tessellations. 

#6. Kirigami

        Kirigami is a term for paper cutting in Japanese. Cutting was used more often in traditional Japanese origami, then now at this day, we have so many clever techniques we don’t use cuts because we don’t need cuts. Most origamists nowadays do not consider designs with cuts to be origami, instead, they use the term kirigami to describe them.

#7 Strip Folding

        Strip folding is a combination of paper folding and weaving. There is probably nothing to say about this but I’ll tell you about the most well-known designs: One of them is Lucky Stars, Lucky Stars is one of the easiest strip designs, the word can also be called Chinese Lucky Star, dream star, wishing star, or the origami star.