Design: The Art of Bookbinding
JA
July 22
There’s really no other way to say this but bookbinding is truly, truly awesome. The first Designer Bookbinders International Competition was held earlier this year, with bookbinders from all around the world dusting off their block presses and endpapers to enter. The following images are taken from the 117 short-listed entries, which took on the theme of water as their inspiration. For further entries, have a look at this Guardian slideshow.
1. Winner: Alain Taral. Binding made out of pear wood covered with Karelian birch veneer. Inspired by the idea that ‘water comes to us from rocks, from mother earth, but also from clouds, sometimes from tears … just a few drops that come together to form streams and lakes’.
2. Runner-up: Jenni Grey. The pages have been divided into two bindings, ‘Water’ and ‘Waterborn’; both featuring machine-embroidered grey Dypion-style fabric and airbrushed endpapers. The sign was inspired by the light and shade created by sun and clouds on the surface of the sea, and echoes the marbling forms in the text.
3. Christine Sieber. Polycarbonate covers varnished with car lacquer using airbrush techniques. Rotating sections of multicoloured airbrushed acetate are articulated within the front and back covers.
4. George Kirkpatrick. Bound in calf and various goatskins with palladium tooling, silver rhodium and gilded brass. Inspired by the idea of a drop of water landing on the dried mud and soaking through to the back cover, where dormant seeds spring to life.
5. Yukiko Uchida. Brown Japanese paper spine textured with cactus thread. The cream Japanese paper boards with movable magnetic sculptured fish are covered in red boxcalf. The Japanese endpapers are dark blue and the flexible jacket is of varnished wood.
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Comments
22 Jul 09 at 14:27
Eerie - I've just spent the morning at the Melbourne Museum of Printing in Footscray, learning about bookbinding. Well worth a look if you're this interested in bookbinding - it really reveals how much of a craft it is.
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