Ib Penick
Ib Penick (1930–1998), a native of Denmark, was known as "the creative mind behind the resurgence of pop-up children's books in the 1960s and 1970s. In his career, Penick designed more than 130 children's books, including "Star Wars: a Pop-up Book", which sold more than a million copies. Penick related to one reporter, "...there are only about 100 folds and tricks to [his paper engineering] trade. It's like playing a piano. You have only a certain number of keys, but it's the combinations that make the difference." Biography. In the 1960s Penick  joined Waldo Hunt at Graphics International, a firm that created pop-up books, including a series of titles for Random House and other publishers. Penick was the "premier paper engineer" for the Random House pop-up titles, and Tor Lokvig was his protege. According to Gerald Harrison, a former president of the children's books division at Random House, Penick "was really responsible for creating the whole world we lived in. With the advent of the Random House line, a whole industry was created and the very first ones were created by Ib." Penick and Hunt later sold Graphics International  to Hallmark Cards in 1966. Selected bibliography. The following is a sample of the pop-up books paper engineered by Ib Penick: Patents. Penick held several patents in the area of paper engineering, camera design and packaging, including: