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This article was published on March 29, 2012

Create a cuter, foldable, more portable You with Foldable.me


Create a cuter, foldable, more portable You with Foldable.me

Ever wish you could just post yourself somewhere and visit friends far away? Well Mint Digital has a solution for you. Foldable.Me is their latest and possibly one of their cutest endeavours.

The idea is to create a little cardboard figure of yourself. You can customise it on the Foldable.Me website and it can then be sent anywhere in the world on your behalf.

The tiny effigies stand 8cm high and are fun gift to send to friends with minimal fuss. Scissors and glue are not required for assembly and they’re not too tricky to make up.

It’s not always easy to find a simple and yet personal trinket you can pop in the post. Mint Digital describes the reasoning behind the product:

We set out to make an affordable personalised present that didn’t suck. Until now, mass customisation meant 2D – lame gift cards or t-shirts. We wanted to offer something a bit more special.

And so the Foldable.Me service was born. Working with the talented Chris Beaumont of CubeeCraft we made a simple model. People simply loved the little guy and wanted one for themselves. We knew this needed to happen.

Creating a population of tiny cardboard people is not without its costs. So Mint Digital have launched the project on Kickstarter to get it up and running. The main costs to cover are the tooling and production for the first print run with additional funds to be spent on creating more clothing options and facial features on the figures for better personalisation options.

You might consider getting your pens and pencils out and trying it for yourself, but bear in mind that Foldable.Me is supported by a team of illustrators and printers in the UK and USA. Each one is made to order using high quality inks and card. Adding to the appeal, worldwide shipping is included.

Creating a tiny figure of yourself will doubtless inspire many other online projects. People have been taking photos of toys, gnomes and other characters in amusing or bizarre locations for years and now you can send yourself on these adventures too.

If you grew up reading the kids book Flat Stanley, you’ll find this idea to be very exciting. Even if you didn’t it’s still a fun way to get yourself around the world without the airport taxes and passport control.

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