#designer bookbinding

The Island, by Geert Mak

Back in 2017, an International Miniature Bookbinding Competition was organised by the Hand Bookbinding Foundation together with the publisher De Buitenkant and Museum Meermanno. I have not posted the pictures of my entry because strangely, the pictures went missing in Louis’ photo archive and no matter how we searched, it just couldn’t be found. 

Just last week, while Louis was compiling some photographs for his upcoming residency, he found my pictures. I was super relieved and happy that I did have photographs of this book documented. 

This book measured 76 x 54 x 18mm. My book unfortunately was trapped in customs upon arrival into The Netherlands and did not make it in time for judging. However, it was listed in the Second Selection Round. This book is a permanent exhibit at Museum Meermanno in Haag. 

The book was sewn on recessed cords. It has acrylic covers with acetate cut-outs of faces representing the individuals who lived on the island, interacting with each other. The boards are slightly translucent and you can see through both from the outside and the inside, where it also acts as the doublure. The transparency reflects on the fleeting moment of the existence of the community on that island. The endpapers are handprinted with the lower case ‘i’ for the island, and also an icon of a human. I made the box to match the binding, using primarily red and green as to match the prints in the book.

A Great Start to the Year of the Dog: Venus Explor’d

Happy Lunar New Year to all that are celebrating this special day around the world. It is the year of the dog and it is my year. It has been a great start so far, with my first miniature commission, received by my customer, Neale Albert, who is a collector of miniature books in New York, and hearing that he loves it. 

Venus Explor’d is an entire book of black and white photographs. I was toying with the idea of keeping the book monotone, but after reading the quotations that accompanied each photograph, I gained some inspiration.

This final design was not exactly what I had originally envisioned. It gradually transformed to what it is. One of the quotations was “This is the porcelain of humankind...” by John Dryden in Don Sebastian. Which lead me to wanting to create a fluid form, a softness and translucency to bring out the beauty of the female form, the soft skin on a woman, and the pinkness that lies beneath it, of the warmness of her blood and her touch. I also wanted to create a sort of “lost in the galaxy” effect, or looking out at space and the beautiful colours caused by the energies that surround the beautiful planet of Venus. 

This binding is made with laminated attached boards, with a leather-joint doublure that extends beyond the boards and “turned-out” onto the outer sides of the covers, in white kangaroo leather. The endbands are hand sewn with white Japanese silk and the edges of the book are left pure white. The endpapers are made with a blend of alcohol inks on translucent paper and folded over so that the colours overlap and can be seen through when placed up in the light. 

The covers of Venus Explor’d is a resin tile, mixed with alcohol inks of the same colours as the endpapers, swirled and poured over the handwritten title using Chinese ink. It took me many tries to get the resin to a correct thickness and consistency and I do enjoy that there are some air bubbles trapped within it. It adds to the specks of black ink, giving the covers a three dimensional effect, with the floating bubbles, fixed in place. 

The box I made for this binding is a basic two tray drop-back clasmshell box. However I made a little tab so that the book can be lifted up from its recess.