Design Bindings of the Booker Prize 2021 – Mark Cockram [Bookish Talk #24]

Every year, six Designer Bookbinders’ fellows are chosen to create six unique bindings for the books shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Last year, we have published a series of videos with bookbinders who took part in that project. We return to that theme this year with six new bindings. Our first guest is Mark Cockram with his binding for “No One Is Talking About This” by Patricia Lockwood.

We hope to see the authors of all six bindings made for the Booker Prize in 2021, and currently, we have already recorded two videos and preparing to record two more. We’ll see how it goes early in January.

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00:00 – Beginning
00:34 – Backstage of the binding processes for The Booker Prize shortlist
03:59 – Reading and interacting with the text while working
07:04 – “No One Is Talking About This” by Patricia Lockwood
08:03 – Difference between a “normal reading” and reading when you are looking for a visual metaphor for binding
10:15 – From a rough sketch to finished binding: how the process begins
12:47 – Difficulties with finding materials for collage on the cover of “No One Is Talking About This”
16:29 – Hiding a secret work from students and visitors of Mark’s studio
18:20 – How quotes from the book become parts of a collage as a metaphor of communication on the Internet
24:25 – Some technical moments of binding “No One Is Talking About This” by Patricia Lockwood
29:50 – The chicken or the egg: making a box for the binding
32:15 – Working on the book’s edges
34:21 – The presentation of The Booker Prize 2021
38:11 – Collaboration of the Booker Prize and bookbinders, the difference between binding old/famous and modern/brand new books
45:05 – Interacting with the author of the text during the binding process

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