Archaic Devices is a studio based in Portland, Oregon. It is dedicated to inventing new toys and scientific instruments that should have been made one hundred and fifty years ago. A few of  these machines actually were invented back then. In other cases the old inventors missed the obvious and skipped over our wonderful discoveries.

Joe Freedman works with his partner Ilisha Helfman. Together they make optical toys, paper pop-ups, and dollhouse miniatures. They began designing and producing optical toys and pop-up sculptural toys and cards in 1999 using laser cutters. All the pop-ups are made in small quantities. Edition size is variable but usually less than 50 or 100 pieces. Joe's award winning Retroscope was included in "Stand and Deliver" an exhibition devoted to dimensional artist's books. He has been commissioned by the Beincke Library at Yale University to produce a tunnel book as well as an accordion book. Together they have lectured and given workshops.

Their commercial paper projects can be seen at leafpdx.com