HCM CITY – Sài Gòn Phố (Sài Gòn Streets), a pop-up book on HCM City’s major landmarks, was released on Sunday.

The book was created by Nextstep, a group of five students from the Industrial Arts faculty at HCM City’s Văn Lang University.

The group spent several months working on the book, which contains 10 miniature paper replicas of the city’s historical and cultural sites like Notre Dame Cathedral, Tân Định Church, Bến Thành Market, Central Post Office, and Turtle Lake.

“We decided on a pop-up book to make these architectures more visual and attractive,” Phạm Thị Bích Thảo, one of Nextstep’s members, said.

“We also wrote captions in both Vietnamese and English to benefit foreign tourists.”

Pop-up books are very popular around the world, but new to Việt Nam, and so her group had to research a lot about pop-up art from books and the internet, she said.

“We did again and again hundreds of times to perfect each pop-up image.”

Sài Gòn Phố has captured the attention of the public and authorities since it won the top prize at a souvenir design contest organised by the city Department of Tourism and the Handicraft and Wood Industry Association of HCM City in 2015.

The department also selected the book as one of eight outstanding products that acquaint foreign visitors with the city.

But despite its fame, the release of the book was delayed by nearly two years.

“We faced financial problems,” Thảo said, adding it cost a lot to print a pop-up book.

Nextstep sought support from www.comicola.com, a leading crowd-funding website in Việt Nam, to publish the book.

Besides, Sài Gòn Phố has been pre-sold on www.comicola.com for VNĐ240,000 (US$11), and VNĐ330,000 ($14.5) for the special edition, since September to raise funds for the book.

The book is available at the website, and will soon appear in city bookstores. — VNS