These Papercraft Gadget Replicas Will Make Your Eyes Pop Out!

What do you do on a rainy day when you find yourself on the brink of suicide because of boredom? I highly doubt that a lot of you would instantly say “work on some papercraft“, but after seeing this series of photographs, you just might be tempted to give the hobby a hand.

Zim & Zou ((Zim &Zou)) is a French graphic design company composed of Lucie Thomas and Thibault Zimmermann. They have just released a new project called Back to Basics. Think of it as gadgets recreated using paper. Not just any gadget, mind you, but classic gadgets that will make many of us feel nostalgic. Oh, and this is not the boring kind of papercraft (I hated that in grade school) – take a look for yourself.

Back to Basics Paper Gadgets

At first glance, all you may notice are the colors that my 3-year-old niece would love. Upon closer inspection, however, you will not fail to appreciate the work that went into each of these papercraft gadget replicas.

Papercraft Camera

Forget your DLSR for a second, will you? The first of the papercraft gadget replicas by Z&Z makes me want to hear that unique sound old time cameras make when moving the film.

Paper Camera

Paper Polaroid

Speaking of cameras, don’t you feel a special affinity for the Polaroid? The last time I had an encounter with one was last year in Singapore when some promo girls for the F1 Night Race took our picture. That Polaroid was nowhere near as colorful as this, though.

Paper Polaroid

Here’s a closer look.

Paper Polaroid Up Close

Paper Walkman

The Sony Walkman was THE gadget back when I was a kid, and anyone who had it was cool. Now if Sony had produced Walkmans in these colors, I wonder if they could have sold even more?

Paper Walkman

Paper Cassette Tape

If there is a Sony Walkman, there ought to be papercraft gadget replicas of cassette tapes as well. Z&Z does not fail us in this! (There is one, at least.)

Paper Cassette Tape

Paper Mobile Phone

Ahhh. This papercraft gadget replica brings me back to my high school days when the only mobile phone available was this brick of a Motorola. Our unit had more subdued shades, of course, but this replica still brings back those memories.

Paper Mobile Phone

The paper mobile phone in action.

Paper Mobile Phone Close Up

Paper Nintendo Controller

Who wants to play a game of Super Mario? With this colorful replica, you’ll even have more fun.

Paper Nintendo Controller

Paper Floppy Disk

Saving the best of the papercraft gadget replicas for last…the good old 3 1/2″ floppy disk that contained a whopping 1.44MB of data. I think I had all possible colors of those disks, and actually, I only got rid of those stacks several years ago. I can see disks with this color sell rather easily.

Paper Floppy Disk