How Not to Repair Pages of a Book
Recently found a book that is practically a collection of "how not to's." It's a Pentateuch printed in 1859 in Germany, and it has issues starting right from the title page and throughout the book.
Our Gentle Boy Onfim – Birch Bark Doodles of a Medieval Russian Kid
Part of an extensive collection of manuscripts, unearthed in the Russian city of Novgorod more than five years ago, these childish writings were produced by an old practice of writing on birch bark.
Sometimes Somewhat Naive Covers are the Best
This cover decoration is just an ink drawing on a canvas material of the cover that wasn't even properly fixed on the cardboard. Add not-really-straight lettering, voila! Metamorphoses by Publius Ovidius Naso. German edition, from 1897.
Boekkunstbeurs is in Three Weeks — Art of Book Fair in Leiden, Netherlands
It's only three weeks left until Boekkunstbeurs, a fair organized by the bookbinders' and printers' guilds of the Netherlands. It means there's not much time to prepare, but enough time to plan a trip and buy a plane ticket!
Bookish Street Switch Box in Leiden, Netherlands
Just a street switch box at a bus stop near our home in Leiden. You can find it right here: https://goo.gl/maps/ZAuiJza36ap8UXMi7
Color-Sorted and Color-Coded Libraries
There a distinctive difference between color-sorted and color-coded libraries. However, the second may be a subset of the first. But in any case, we'd like to talk about libraries sorted by the colors of their books' covers today.
Beautiful Decorated Initials of a 17th-Century Dutch Bible
Check these amazing initials that book restorer Eliane Gomes from Nautilus Boekbinderij found in a Bible that was printed in 1690 in the Hague. Interestingly printers seemingly didn't have a matching initial "V"!
iBookBinding Starts Sales of a New Item: Plexiglas Book Cradle
We are glad to offer you a new category of items in our shop: Plexiglas/Acrylic book cradles. At the current moment, we have already added two versions of the cradle in two different sizes, but soon there will be more of them!
How New Technologies Enliven Old Finds
It takes an expert eye to decipher old and damaged manuscripts, but even that is not enough sometimes. Recently, multispectral technology has aided researchers of the Dead Sea Scrolls to read ink invisible to the naked eye and pinpoint previously unknown texts.
Before the Eagle had Landed
Old books are genuinely fascinating. Although their content might have become obsolete, they still possess historical value. Reading them can teach us a lot about the beliefs and ideas humankind once held. But not only that.
Mr. Marcel Proust and His Turquoise Marbled Papers
These two volumes were standing out among other tomes at the book market in the Hague. But what most impressed me wasn't visible while the volumes were tucked between other books. Just check the marbled paper!
Five Years Ago This Day I Became a Bookbinding Teacher
Thanks to a group of photographers who wanted to know how to make photo books, I made this one-off thing, an introductory bookbinding class. The initial plan was to be done in four hours, and at 23:00, we were done!
Enchanting Drawings on My Handmade Paper
My handmade paper recently received an impressive upgrade. Anastasia Golovina, an architect and an artist from Moscow, improved it with these enchanting houses. It is even more impressive as I never considered myself a true papermaker.
Making a Book Alive — When Book Arts Meet Animatronics
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!
How Not to Make a Cover for a Convolute Binding
This specimen of convolute binding really put into a quandary. This volume included a year's worth of Russian magazines Printing Art ("Печатное искусство".) And it had one of the pages from the first issue cut out.
