Sai Gon Pho (Saigon Streets), a pop-up book on HCM City’s major landmarks, was released on January 15.

The book was created by Nextstep, a group of five students from the Industrial Arts faculty at HCM City’s Van 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, Tan Dinh Church, Ben Thanh Market, Central Post Office and Turtle Lake.

“We decided on a pop-up book to make these architectures more visual and attractive,” Pham Thi Bich Thao, one of Nextstep’s members, said.

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

Pop-up books are very popular around the world but new in Vietnam, 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.”

Sai Gon Pho 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 an Wood Industry Association of HCM City in 2015.

The department also selected the book as one of the 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,” Thao 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 Vietnam, to publish the book.

Besides, Sai Gon Pho has been pre-sold on www.comicola.com for 240,000 VND (11 USD) and 330,000 VND (14.5 USD) 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.

VNA