#bespoke bookbinding

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10 Watercolour Travel Journals 

Once in a while, I do edition bindings. This is the second book produced by my customer for his travels in Indonesia in 2018. Back in 2017, he made 6 copies of his first book, and also following the look set back then, we decided to keep the batik element in the books.

We chose a single colour batik this time, bound using the same disappearing spine Bradel binding, using a matching solid blue book cloth to break the patterns. The books are all unique, having a different part of the batik on the cover, as well as different colour endpapers. My favourite ones was the one with the huge peony on the front. Unfortunately, I forgot to photograph the endbands, which I made using part of the batik pattern. 

I admire my customer’s adventures and envy his beautiful watercolour paintings. They were all painted during his travels deep into the Indonesian jungle, living like a local. It always brings me a lot of joy looking at his paintings while binding his books. Perhaps one day, I might learn to paint like him.

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For A Dear Friend’s 70th Birthday

The kind of friendship one has, is one of the most valuable relationships to treasure. My customer came to me, with a grand idea of making a book for her friend on her 70th birthday. It was to be filled with dedications from people who were touched by her friend. The tricky bit was that, all these dedications were sent from all over the world.

The book starts off with a poem, beautifully handwritten by Clarence, a calligrapher from Craft Varies. It was quite a feat designing the layout of the dedications as they came in all sizes, but it all turned out very beautiful. It then ends with a hand drawn/written heart, also by Craft Varies. 

For the cover, I printed on canvas, of a piece of artwork provided by my customer of photographs of people who were touched by her friend. The endpapers was made up of a scan of her friend’s grandmother’s dairy farm name card from the 70s. 

Presents like these, let us know, how as humans, our gift from our hearts can show a person how much they mean to us. Books are worth investing in, as they carry not just words, but the immense love that is laid out of paper, for all to see, remember and treasure. 

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Case Bound Book in Tyvek®

Back when I was working on Vita Nuova, my customer came for a consultation and saw the mock up of it and was very attracted to the Tyvek® cover I made for that binding. She loved it so much that she hoped I could create a binding using the same elements for her. The book was meant as a birthday gift for a loved one.

The Tyvek® cover was made using flottage using letterpress inks on water. Small red foil dots were tooled onto the Tyvek®.

This book is meant to be used as a recipe book in the kitchen, and the Tyvek® would definitely be a suitable material as the cover, being water resistant and easily cleaned. I hope it has some yummy recipes in it now. 

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La Maison Roulante (After Restoration) - The Box

To know that a book is an heirloom and the amount of work that is put into it for its longevity to be passed down more generations to come, is phenomenal, that it deserves 3 posts dedicated to it. 

In the previous 2 posts, I talked about the condition of the book when I received it before I worked on restoring it, and how the book turned out after the work and time I put into it. 

Now, this post is about its box. For a book this precious, a bespoke box has to be made to match up to its splendour. I wanted to feature the original covers, but have it part of the box. I made a two tray drop back box, covered it with a german brand linen book cloth and made windows on the front and spine to house the original covers. I used an archival grade Mylar to protect the original covers. The book sits inside the inner tray perfectly and will now be protected against elements and rough handling. 

I hope this book will outlive me, and that the future generations of my customer’s family will enjoy his efforts in wanting to create a family heirloom that holds the memory of all before them. 

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La Maison Roulante (After Restoration) - The Book

After the repairs and restoration of the textblock, the bespoke covers are made to be exactly like the original hand drawn covers, but with leather. 

The book is covered in full Harmatan beige fine goat leather. The endbands are hand sewn using Japanese silk threads in the colours of the French flag, using the double core French endband style. I chose to do that because my customer’s grandmother originated from France, and the book is in French. The title on the front is hand dyed black leather back-pared onlays. The caravan on the spine is also back-pared onlays using various Harmatan goat leathers. Because the stars and the title on the spine were very fine on the original cover, I decided to draw the title and stars using a 0.03mm Copic liner pen. 

The missing pages were reproduced using a digital copy of the book found on a French online library. It was found by my customer’s wife, and we were very happy that the scans were of high resolution so that they can be printed. My customer also wanted to add photographs from his grandmother’s family, as well as photographs of the family, as this book is to be an heirloom to be passed on to his daughter. 

I made a bespoke box to house this book. Check out the next post for the write up of the box. 

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A Great Way to Remember

It is sad news when loved ones pass on, but memories of them should be kept and recorded in the most touching and endearing way.

My customer came to me, wanting to have a memorial book made for his father. He wanted everyone who knew his father, to remember him and pen their memories in this book during a memorial service held in Hong Kong. We were deciding on the type of covering for the book when I thought, what better way to remember a person, than to use a favourite piece of clothing that he often wears. 

Bound using the Bradel binding with a disappearing spine. The spine of the memorial book reflects the colours of his father’s Scouts service ribbon bar in leather and a hand-sewn Japanese silk headband to match. The checkered cloth was from a shirt that his father often wears.