All the Zatchu Punch’s to date have had written instructions, available as a pdf, online or printed out for you, image by image. This is the first time the instructions are printed on the piece itself. My pal Dean has a hard time putting these things together, so I usually ask him about the quality of the instructions. So far, I’ve scored in the C- to F range. I’ve been thinking not only about the quality of the design but also about how the design makes instructions easier to follow. For example, do the two ends of a strut piece need to be different? If they can be made to be the same, then people who put it together won’t need to try to figure out which end goes in where.
I had about an hour and a half to determine what these instructions would look like, since the printer set the deadline. So I made a 2-D model of my 3-D model of Sutro tower that you build from 2-D card stock…and the rest was just remembering how cryptic and weird IKEA instructions look when they aren’t written in English. The result looks pretty, though. I know I’ll have another chance to revisit these, but not before hundreds of people try to make it.