Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding and originates back to as earlier as 600 A.D. Shortly after the invention of paper in 100 A.D., the Japanese used their artistic history and talent to make beautiful and unique shapes out of the newly invented thin paper. The origins of origami started in China, but it became popular and gained it’s name over in Japan. Throughout history, origami has been used for various special events including royal and rich weddings and parties. It has always been a symbol of rich and wellness as well as class and beauty but more recently it has become a highly thought of talent and skill. Those that possess the skills to make beautiful origami designs are highly regarded and some of them earn a lot of money from it too.

Since the popularity of origami is growing vastly throughout the world and has been doing for the past century or so, we thought it was only accurate to put together some of the best and beautiful origami designs ever created and talk about them a little. Everyone of them is special and unique to the artist so this ranking is completely biased and based on our preference.

Dating back to as early as the 6th century when Buddhist monks discovered the invention of paper from China, origami is the art of designing and folding paper. However, the first usage of paper as a folding form of art is debatable as it was so long ago. There are many historians who still debate when the Japanese or Chinese people started folding and designing on paper and made it into what we know it is today. The first talk of origami being an art was in a poem reference in 1680 by Ihara Saikaku in which origami butterflies symbolise the bride and groom during their wedding. Yet, the first book focusing on origami was only published in 1797 called Senbazuru orikata by Japanese origami artist. It details how to fold basic origami and gets the reader interested in learning more about the art and how they can do it themselves.

Between 1600 and 1870 the art of paper folding has become more of a recreational and ceremonial thing in Japan and it often started to feature different cuts and folds. Towards the end of the 19th century origami was regarded as a form of art and started to become mass-produced and more-affordable for everyone who wanted it. Europe started mass-producing origami in the 1800’s too with young children learning to fold paper in school.

Those who know the history of origami and are an artist within the field will know the Japanese legend and master, Akira Yoshizawa who developed the system of folding patterns using symbols, diagrams and arrows. He is often considered as the biggest progenitors of modern-day origami but unfortunately died at the age of 94 in 2005. During his origami career he developed many different techniques of origami that are still used in the art today, such as wet-folding. The Yoshizawa-Randlett system was the name given to the symbols and diagrams he created, and it was later improved upon by Samuel Randlett and Robert Harbin. The book ‘Secrets of the Origami Masters’ was written by Robert Harbin in the mid 1960’s, it used many techniques by Yoshizawa and revealed the wide world of paper folding to everyone who wished to know it.

Since the development of books and origami masters speaking about the industry, it has become even more popular world-wide. Every year beautifully intricate designs and new techniques are developed by other artists and more variations are thought up of. The most famous origami design in Japanese culture was the Japanese crane and although nobody knows the original artist, the legends say that those who fold one thousand paper crames have their heart’s desire come true. The crane has slowly become symbolic of peace and rest ever since the little 12-year-old Sadako Sasaki (a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb) decided to fold one thousand paper cranes so that she could live after she was diagnosed as terminally ill with Leukemia. Before her death, Sadako Sasaki folded 644 cranes and a popular version of the tale suggests that the rest of her classmates carried on folding the cranes as she was buried with 1,000 cranes at her funeral. There is now a statue of the young girl stretching out and holding an origami crane in the Hiroshima Peace Park and every year on her anniversary the statue is adorned with a thousand origami cranes (also known as senbazuru in Japan).

Today, origami is often thought of as more complex than many math theories as it seen between the folds, various mathematical origami pioneers have created patterns which emphase the complexity and puzzling aspect of origami. There have also been various origami artists that regularly develop new designs and take their origami designs to other worlds and levels. Abstract paper folders such as Jean-Claude Correia and Paul Jackson have further developed the origami art.

Popular forms of origami include wet-folding, which is when artists wet the origami paper before they form it into their own designs, this allows for the origami to look more real life and creates curves in the paper. However, it is extremely difficult to master and there are a lot of origami masters that cannot use this technique. There is also the art of modular origami which requires two or more pieces of paper that is typically folded into a shape called a ‘module’. After folding all of the separate shapes they are assembled together to form the final origami unit. The final model that is made looks completely different to the units themselves which means that certain artists can’t do it. One of the most popular techniques of origami is action origami as they move. It can be anything from a jumping frog to a paper airplane (which is one of the oldest action models in the world). The models often move due to the nature of how they’re made. The flapping bird is a classic action piece of origami which was invented in 1870 by accident when the inventor was unable to remember the paper crane. Often modular and action origami can be mixed together the artist needs to make up various butterflies before assembling them into a ball which can be used to play with.