how to fold
A bit on the pricey side, but definitely worth every penny, is Pepin Press’ How to Fold. This instructional book is filled with diagrams, guides, and ready-to-use templates for how to fold paper and cardstock into envelopes, books, folders, etc. It also comes with a cd-rom which has all the templates in vector format so that you can resize them and print them according to the dimensions you want.
Two concepts you can’t do without when folding are paper grain and scoring. Paper grain is the direction that most of the fibers lie, and it’s important to fold parallel to the paper grain. You’ve probably had your own experience of folding a heavier or more textured paper that cracked along the fold — that meant you folded against the paper grain. To find the direction of the grain, lightly fold over the paper in one direction, and then try the other — in one direction, the paper will fold over much easier — that’s the direction of your paper grain.
For certain papers, like Japanese or Thai handmade papers where the fibers are arranged more randomly, it doesn’t matter. If you’re buying a large batch of papers from a printshop or paper mill, you could ask them the direction of the paper grain, and most likely they’ll know. If you want to read more about this topic, check out Paper Grain and Smoothness by Xerox.
Scoring is to create an indentation in the paper so that you can have a crisp, clean fold. Instead of drawing the line of your fold with a ruler and pencil, you’d draw that line using your ruler and a bone folder. Since you’ll fold your paper in the direction of your paper grain, it only makes sense to score your paper parallel to the paper grain.
It seems a bit stuffy to be reading up on all these technical things when all you’re doing is folding. But, when you’ve spent hours, days and weeks designing a card, book, or box you really do need a clean, crisp fold to complete the look. You’ll also save yourself a lot of energy if you plan on folding a large batch of papers by yourself — paper folded in the right way falls into place smoothly, while paper folded against the grain takes a lot of might and muscle just to get a decent fold.
[…] 1. Folding the accordion: Cut the long sheet of paper to whatever height you choose. Fold the paper in half. Then fold each half to the middle. You should have a mountain/valley fold sequence. (If you want to make an extra-long book, make two of these long folded sheets and join them together with either glue or tape.) Use a bone folder when folding to get crisp clean folds. […]