165 design references

Aimee’s Papercraft World · a paper-textured landscape

Reel by Andrew Chornyy

A paper world makes the page feel familiar, but the portfolio is still the two signs, and those signs are too small to read.

Visit website · Aimee’s Papercraft World

What to look at

The reel opens inside aimees-papercraft-world.com, already in the world. The view is a paper diorama cut in half: a blue side with a snowman, pines, and a sled, and a green side with a tree, a pond, flowers, and a small figure. A paper sign on the green wall reads About Me. The view then slides to an orange wall. A sign there reads My Work, Info sits in the corner, and a small city photo is pinned under the sign. The sentences under both signs are too small to read in the recording. The page script maps blue to winter, green to spring, and orange to summer.

The opening view is split: a blue paper winter with a snowman and a sled, and a green side with a tree, a pond, and an About Me sign.
The opening view is split: a blue paper winter with a snowman and a sled, and a green side with a tree, a pond, and an About Me sign.
The orange wall has a paper sign reading My Work, an Info label, and a small city photo. The paragraph under the sign is small.
The orange wall has a paper sign reading My Work, an Info label, and a small city photo. The paragraph under the sign is small.

Why it works

A snowman and a tree cut from paper are a skeuomorph: a digital scene that imitates a physical craft. Nielsen Norman Group says that kind of imitation is for "reducing the learning curve," because a familiar object tells you what you are looking at before you learn the interface. That is why this reads as a handmade world instead of a list of jobs. It does not make the sentences readable. About Me and My Work are the only headings that stay clear, and they are painted on the wall rather than set as text in the page. The Codrops article this site links to says the seasons are there so one person's story is more than one mood, and it says that idea has not been formally tested. Andrew Chornyy says a visitor will remember the design. The recording shows the paper. It does not show anyone stopping on a sentence.

Try it

  1. Set About Me and My Work as real headings in the page, large enough to read without zooming the scene.
  2. Keep those same words in the HTML, not only painted on the wall, so a screen reader can find them.
  3. Leave the heading in one corner when the wall changes from blue to green to orange.
  4. Add a plain list of the four seasons for anyone who will not scroll a 3D scene. The script has no reduced-motion switch.
  5. Say on the first screen that the name is anonymized, which the credits panel already says after you open Info.

What it costs

The homepage is an empty box until a script loads four season models. Detailed paper textures are the extra graphics that skeuomorphic interfaces have been criticized for slowing down. If the sentences stay painted on the wall, a phone and a screen reader never get a heading. Andrew Chornyy calls the design new. The maker's own article treats the comfort idea as untested.

Words worth knowing

Sources