This time we invited bookbinder Zeenat Azmi to discuss the state of bookbinding in Eritrea (and not only!) We covered topics from traditional bookbinding styles of the region and the use of papyrus to the influence of Islam and Christianity in Eritrea.
We invited Andreas Maroulis, a Greek bookbinder currently living in the UK. Andreas won an award at the Designer Bookbinders Competition recently with his binding "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck.
This is the second part of our talk with Brenda Gallagher, a graphic designer and bookbinder from Boulder, Colorado. In this video, she shows some of her bindings and invites us to see her bookbinding workshop and printing studio.
We discuss two objects from my collection. This book and... something else. Both of them have something in common: after I got them, I searched the internet and found them being sold on auctions in the previous years.
Today we share this special issue of The Illuminators' Magazine from 1862. That's a beautiful and informative edition that includes 29 amazing plates (chromolithographs) showcasing different types of illumination.
It's time to share this month's digitized books. Both of them will be dedicated to illumination and both were published in the middle of the 19th century. Today's book is A Guide to Beginners in the Art of Illumination by A. H. Warren.
This is the spookiest time of the year, and we have some scary bookish things to share with you! Well, some of them are more fun than spooky, but that's probably the main idea of all this pandemonium.
There's this whole school of visual effects in movies that goes for practical effects rather than using CGI. Guess what, you can do that too. Robert Ontell, a young 3d-printing champion from California, made a spooky book with an animatronic eye!
Right opposite the entrance to our quarter in Leiden there's an old books shop. In the window passers by can see lots of book-earrings with marbled covers.
Right from the beginning, the authors make it clear who is the main audience of the book. Designers and production managers – people who decide how the final product should look like. My own perspective is quite different. Usually, I make all decisions regarding book development on my own, taking the client’s input into account. From cover design to book format, from binding style to brand of paper used to make a book block.
This January in the capital city of Estonia Alexander Vasin and Natalia Velchinskaya have produced a new course – Tallinn Laboratoria. Alexander and Natalia are creators of many typography and book design courses, both in Moscow and abroad. This time they’ve brought a group of students to study in a local print house Labora Tallinna Paber.
Every month I add new blogs to my feed. It is really inspiring to see all these fine people writing about bookbinding and book conservation tricks, their projects and thoughts. At the same moment, it becomes harder to filter links for our monthly digest — there is just too much I’d like to share with you!
This Sunday I had a third gold tooling class at my workshop. Once again I wasn’t a teacher, but a student. I’m really glad I had a chance to arrange this series of lessons at my studio and join them to learn something new.
Yesterday was the second gold tooling class I’m taking. Once again, we’ve been practicing lines on dummy books. However, our teacher reserved some fun for the end of the workshop.
OK, this is pretty awesome! Freehand gold tooling/calligraphy.
