Paper engineer, designer, and art director Gene Vosough died on July 25 in Baltimore, of cancer. He was 59.

Gene was born November 3, 1965, in Baltimore, the only child of a father who was an artist and industrial engineer, and a mother who was a violinist and music teacher. From a young age his parents encouraged him to try different artistic pursuits, and he soon discovered an affinity for painting and for woodworking, which became a lifelong passion.

Upon graduating high school, Vosough began studying architecture at the University of Maryland, but after two years found it wasn’t a good fit. He changed course and eventually earned a degree in advertising and design, which helped him land a job at a Washington, D.C., advertising agency post-graduation. That career path was also short-lived, however, so he then focused on various design jobs as a freelancer.

By the late 1980s, Vosough had become an art director at Ottenheimer Publishers, a Baltimore-based book packager largely known for its children’s pop-up and board books. The job enabled him to visit New York City, a destination he came to enjoy. And when one of his friends relocated to Manhattan, Vosough took the opportunity to also make the move.

In 1996, Vosough accepted a senior designer position at the HarperFestival imprint at HarperCollins. In 1999, he moved to Simon & Schuster’s Little Simon imprint to become an art director. It was there that Vosough worked with esteemed children’s author and paper engineer Robert Sabuda. “Gene was instrumental in helping me ‘navigate’ the intricate and very complex world of creating commercial 3D books for young readers,” Sabuda told PW. “He helped me understand the technological challenges of printing my work in the way I wanted it to appear, especially in using non-traditional inks, in the finished books, in addition to being a fantastic art director and hand-holder. His passing is a great loss to the publishing world, and I will miss his wonderful, wonderful laugh!”

Vosough’s tenure at S&S ended in 2007, after which he returned to freelance work for Macmillan and other companies. When the pandemic struck, he moved back to Baltimore.

Fellow paper engineer and book creator Bruce Foster, an editor at Movable Stationery, paid tribute to his close friend. “Gene will be remembered as a talented designer and paper engineer, known for his work on the pop-up book Birdscapes, his own line of greeting cards, pop-up books for Blue’s Clues and SpongeBob, and even the concept he created for a line of Cheerios playbooks, and so much more. But he will be remembered by friends most of all for his infectious laugh, generous spirit, and love of Japanese toys.”