Turkish Map Fold

This technique was created so that travellers and tourists could quite literally fold their large maps up neatly and easily, and fit them in their pocket. This space-saving folding technique is not only handy, but is also a really delicate and attractive way of folding paper - it's more like origami than a just simply a way of folding a map. The folds create an opening which is similar to an accordion and fully opens into a circle when pulled end to end. Within this circle you can open up the individual squares and lay them flat.

It does take some time to get your head around the folding as it can be quite confusing to begin with. However, once you've done it a couple of times you quickly get the hang of it and can fold several of the individual squares before joining them all together. Here's a quick timelapse of me folding some of my pages:

Here's what the pages look like after being folded. Hopefully now you can see what I mean when I say they open out like an accordion! The ends can be joined together after this so that they can be opened out into a circle.

Keeping in line with the theme of "maps" I decided to produce a brief map of the stars for children. I did some research on constellations and illustrated a few squares that would eventually be joined together into a small book that children could easily carry with them when star-gazing.