User:Sindariel/sandbox

Andrew Baron is a leading pop-up book designer and paper engineer  and restorer of antique technologies who specializes in early electronic works such as automata and theremins.

Baron was the second paper engineer (of six to date ) to earn the biennial international award in paper engineering, The Meggendorfer Prize (an award instituted by the Movable Book Society of America in honor of German illustrator Lothar Meggendorfer), following its first winner, Robert Sabuda. Two of his chief accomplishments are in the permanent collections of national institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution (Acuity's Storybook Year, Acuity's 2011 pop-up annual report) and the Franklin Institute (restoration of the ca. 1790s automaton created by Henri Malliardet). Baron has contributed to works that include a book that won a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year (Knick Knack Paddywhack! by Paul O. Zelinsky), and a book that won a Caldecott Medal, among others (The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick).

Paper Engineer
Knick-Knack Paddywhack!, a collaboration between Caldecott-winning illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky and Andrew Baron, was the first moving parts book to win the New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year Award (2002) and earned Baron the Movable Book Society's Meggendorfer Prize for Best Published Paper Engineered Book. Baron also paper-engineered J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit: a 3-D Pop-up Adventure and co-engineered the Swedish Design Awards Double-Gold Medal-winning Sony Ericsson Pop-up Book, among others. He engineered Acuity Insurance Company’s 2011 annual report entitled Acuity's Storybook Year,  which won the Best Annual Report of 2011 Award by GMI Ratings, a place on the Clio Awards Short List (2011) and is held in the permanent collection of the Cooper-Hewitt Rare Book Collection at the Smithsonian.

Baron mentored Kyle Olmon, who studied under Baron before becoming a paper engineering instructor at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

Baron is also listed as a co-author on The Movable Book Society: A Celebration of Pop-up and Movable Books, published by the Movable Book Society (2004), along with Robert Sabuda, Ann Montanaro, Alan Boehm, Ellen G.K. Rubin ("The Pop-up Lady"), and Roy Ziegler.

Maillardet Automaton Restoration
The collaborative relationship with Zelinsky prompted Zelinsky to refer Baron to author and illustrator Brian Selznick regarding the two-hundred-year-old Malliardet automaton, at the Franklin Institute. Selznick was concerned about the automaton's state of disrepair, while he was working on the juvenile fiction novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. "Selznick got in touch with mechanical whiz Andy Baron, a pop-up book designer and real-life Hugo working as a technical consultant for the book. He came to Philadelphia and repaired the automaton that museum officials feared was irreparable." Selznick acknowledges Baron in various sources, including the book and Selznick's Web site, as a “mechanical genius.”

After the successful repair of the Maillardet Automaton, the Franklin Institute featured the invention at the museum’s “Amazing Machines” core exhibit, where it remains on display today. The Invention of Hugo Cabret, on which Baron served as a technical consultant, went on to win the Caldecott Medal in 2008 and was a New York Times #1 Bestseller. The Oscar-winning feature film Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese (theatrically released in 2011), was based on Selznick's book.

Theremin Specialist
In addition to restoring the Maillardet Automaton for the Franklin Institute, Baron also restored the museum's 1929 RCA theremin, which had been inoperable for more than fifty years. Baron’s knowledge of the theremin, a pioneering electronic musical instrument played without physical touch, was featured on an episode of History Detectives (PBS). He later co-founded RCATheremin.com, along with Mike Buffington, “to provide a home for the updated and expanded RCA Theremin Registry (which previously existed at ThereminWorld.com) and to collect, cultivate, and disseminate previously hard-to-find information on the esoteric, historical, technical, and practical considerations associated with the first manufactured electronic musical instrument, the RCA Theremin.”

Speaker
Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History

The Franklin Institute

The Midwest Watch and Clockmakers Association Annual Convention

Mills College Center for the Book

Lang Ranch School (Thousand Oaks, CA)

Books
Co-author

The Movable Book Society: A Celebration of Pop-up and Movable Books

Consultant

Birdscapes: A Pop-Up Celebration of Bird Songs in Stereo Sound

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Paper Engineering

Acuity’s Storybook Year

Birdscapes: A Pop-Up Celebration of Bird Songs in Stereo Sound (Baron supplemented paper engineering by Gene Vosough and Renee Jablow)

Circus

Knick Knack Paddywhack

The Hobbit: A 3D Pop-up Adventure

My Dream Bed

Publication Awards
Paper Engineering (Sole Paper Engineer)

ADDY, Gold (Midwest)

American Library Association Notable Children’s Book

Caldecott Medal

Clio Award, Best Annual Report (U.S.)

Meggendorfer Prize

New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year (the first pop-up to earn this title)

Newsweek #1 Top Pick for Kids

Parenting Magazine Best Book

Platinum Hermes Creative Award of the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals

Print Magazine Certificate of Design Excellence

Quill Award

Smithsonian Magazine Notable Book for Children

Swedish Design Award Gold Medals in two categories: Print Media and Juror's Prize

Paper Engineering (Refinements)

GMA Diane Sawyer Pick for Best Coffee Table Book of 2008

O Magazine, Season's Best Gift Books --