French binding

With this post, we’d like to showcase several projects shared by several different bookbinders this September. These are diverse projects: our main aim is to inspire creativity and the use of different means and materials.

Rod Binding by Julie Auzillon

The general idea of the binding isn’t new. You may see implementation as far as in the 1920s bindings by Brodard & Taupin. Later experiments were conducted by Edgard Claes, Renaud Vernier, Alain Taral or Benjamin Elbel.

However, Julie decided to move forward and developed her own adaptation of this bookbinding style. One of the main principles is to make the rod visible, creating a design element out of it. Not just a structural part. Moreover, it is visible both from outside and from inside, making this style of binding quite distinctive.

Prototype Leather Binding

Binding Covered in Paper

More Bindings

You can read more about this style of binding developed by Julie Auzillon on her website (French). Follow Julie on Facebook and on Instagram. You’ll find more photos here.

Hinged Cubic Box by Sarah Baldi

The sheer size of this box makes an impression. I remember when I was teaching a boxmaking class one of the students decided to make a huge box right from the start without any experience and wouldn’t budge to my please to consider smaller sizes. Well, I don’t have to say it ended badly. Moreover, that was the only student that complained to school owners about the course.

Sarah’s work is impressive both thanks to the complexity of the project and because of the final look of the box. Perfect lines, eye-catching contrast in colors, and this stunning diagonal!

Technical details:

As the content of the box had to be pearl jewelry, durable and refined paper Colorplan Ripple – Vellum White 175 gsm is used. It is combined with a bookbinding canvas with a strong but classic color, Brillianta Calandré – Navy Blue.

Sarah’s description of the project:

These pictures have been taken during the making of one of my last box making projects for a very high quality client in London. The client was a jewellery designer and maker that asked me to reproduce in different scales a box of a cubic shape with strong and robust lines. My idea starts from a perfect cube reproduction built in its turn by perfectly aligned parts and internally reinforced with an impressive inner tray where, in the final manufacturing stage, four layers of padded drawers have been inserted, made of blue cotton and covered with blue silk, suitable for holding the wonderful pearl jewellery. I felt it necessary to start from the design and the production of the first project which required the manufacturing of a large box 46x46cm as a practical need. The two symmetric parts that make the box are equal in design, dimensions and weight in order to create a sense of perfect balance and harmony through the elements, my concern was that during the opening the weight of the upper part could have harmed the box stability and ruin the fundamental idea behind it. So I‘ve decided to manually cut each single piece of cardboard, each angle has been finished and paired manually to create extremely precise edges and achieve a perfect box closing, nearly an hermetic seal. Subsequently I applied metal hinges inspired from the wood boxes design, like this box would have been a contemporary suit chest. In this way I’ve guaranteed and reinforced the entire structure’s stability and opening.

Follow Sarah: Website | Tumblr | Instagram | Facebook | Behance

Twilight by Evangelia Biza

The structure itself isn’t something innovative. What can be older than the Coptic binding, as it is supposedly one of the first codex structures ever invented by humans? But the joint use of the medium, materials, and theme makes this project visually and emotionally challenging.

Technical details:

• 1/1 copy, designed and hand-bound by Evangelia Biza in Athens Greece, September 2019
• Title: Twilight
• Cyanotypes on vintage handmade cotton paper Amalfi
• Coptic binding
• 30 x 10,7 x 1,5 cm
• Title printed on hot foil blocking machine with iridescent silver foil.

This book along with another Evangelia’s binding was chosen for the ‘Artists’ Book Cornucopia X exhibition, organized by the Abecedarian Gallery-dba Abecedarian artists books
from November 7 – November 29, 2019, at the Art Gym Gallery, Denver, Colorado.

Please check Evangelia’s blog and Facebook feed.

Albert Camus – L’Etranger by Huhu Hu

I would just recommend you to check this and other bindings by Huhu Hu. Use of materials, tooling, colors, attention to detail — everything deserves the highest commendation. Another of Huhu’s bindings was recently chosen for the OPEN • SET exhibition. You may find more information about it here.

Technical details:

• French binding with leather doublure
• Leather is hand-dyed.
• Huhu used the leather of different colors, shapes, lines, textures, and depths, to present the feeling of an outsider in a fragmented world.

Huhu posts extensively on Facebook, I urge you to follow her there.

October by Celeste Regal

You may define codex as a number of pages gathered together by some means. That’s why, for example, when we wrote about the oldest Russian book our post was dedicated to a series of wax tables joined together by metal rings.

Celeste’s project in some ways is similar. It’s an experimental book of metal pages that is both an experiment in form and contents.

October is one of a variety of experimental book art using metal for pages. The text is generated by daily observations reframed as ontology and means of survival. Weather is used as emotive stimuli. We question ourselves and others trying to find a compass for living. The materials engage the transitory nature of beauty and aging.

Technical details:

• October, 2016
• 3 in x 9.75 in x 3.25 in
• Materials:
  • Twelve lead pages, patina, stamped, clear coat, wax; tortoise shell cover, stamped copper title; twisted
    18-gauge brass wire, ancient bronze cast feet from alligator toe, 20-gauge brass sheet, silver solder,
    polished; underside oxidized.

Page by page text:

On sheaths of October a voice could be heard above the clang of destiny
The park is closed to comfort but open to suggestion
We can no longer be heard above the roar of lawn management equipment
On any given day we can be lost or found in full sunlight
The dirt you toss will never be fertile
Emotional violence keeps friendly gestures out of compass
The glow of warm embers gave you back your faith
Fine glass when shattered still sounds sweet
The sun on your face can remove all trace of doubt
There is something worth looking for at the bottom
Often we address ourselves when it is others we seek
A summary is not possible in the end

Sold through Gallery Aferro to a private collector in 2017.

Follow Celeste on Facebook and Flickr or visit her website.