The original Effie Award statue

The Effie Awards are marketing communications awards given yearly to honor the most effective marketing communications ideas. One of the most prominent Effie Award winners of recent years was the “fearless girl” statue in Manhattan on Wall Street. This year though, Taro’s Origami Studio was asked to re-create the iconic award in paper for an advertising client and  while Taro’s has years of practice making origami models of all kinds of shapes this request was a little unique.  Not only was Taro’s asked to make a version of the model that was easily recognizable, they were also asked to make it easy enough for other people to fold, and to create an entire set of diagrams to teach others.

The first step in the process was creating a few different versions of a fold-able model that were easy to teach and diagram.  Of course complicated models have their own set of challenges, but contrary to popular belief, simple origami models can also be quite tough to design, because you have to consider making something that folds naturally without too many complications.  The first version of the effie we designed was out of a grid on the paper, but that lead to both extra crease lines that detracted from the final model, and also an inability to accurately re-create the different heights of the steps.  (As you can see from the actual statue, the distance from the first step to the second is much farther than from the second step to the third)

After consulting with the client, Taro’s made a few alterations and came up with the second version of the model, which hit all the important points they asked for in the project- A model that is easily seen as the statue and is also easily made by people that might not have any background in origami.  Then it was on to the final visual touches of the model by adding the copy from the client, and also the logo itself from the statue.

Below you can see the final effie model in all of its glory.

The final version of the origami effie created for the client

Lastly the talented origami staff went to work on creating an instructional origami folding sequence for the model.  The challenge here was making the diagrams easy to follow and in 10 steps or less.  Take a look below and try your own luck folding it!  No matter how strange or unique your project is, chances are the staff at Taro’s can make it, fold it, teach it to others, and help spread the brand awareness.  Let us know how your effie turns out!