Designers
Designers
Designers
Folded In Between
An exploration on what is revealed through letters, journals, CDs in an increasingly digital world.
Key Words

Designers
Natalie Benson
SUMMARY
Folded In Between is an ode to bone folders, dog eared books, letters hiding under your bed. To those folded pages that radically impact our perspectives, relationships, and our understanding of the world around us. While the project ultimately culminates in a community mail system, the real meaningful work is how I got there: conversations I shared, books I paged through, mind maps I scribbled out. I invite the audience into my design process through 12 handmade books to evoke slowness, curiosity, and connection. The artifact is an archive to be discovered, where a mail system sits quietly between the folds for those who seek to find it.
challenge
Stakeholders revealed a tension between the convenience of digital communication and their desire for tactile, meaningful interactions. They seek ways to slow down, preserve memory, and exchange offline, but lack simple, discoverable systems to incorporate these needs in their day to day. Opportunities to build upon analog systems that bring interaction & intentionality revealed themselves in deeply personal and informative interviews & surveys. The responses had emphasis on the meaningfulness of engaging senses with print; the core opportunity is to lend our attention to print: to hold something real in an era of immediacy and impermanence.
Outcome
The project is an offline research archive & community run mail network that brings slower, intentional ways to connect. It responds directly to the need for tactile exchange in a time run by digital distraction. The mail network is made up of chapters that relate to an offline interest, and fills a gap for finding offline community by providing tools for reflection and exchange. Archive box: I designed multiple booklets in response to stakeholders lack of agency in algorithms, to invite them to choose what they give their attention to, what they are truly curious about.Risograph printed to show smudges & touch, as the ink never fully dries.




MEET THE Designers:

Natalie Benson
