Produced by Encyclopedia Britannica Films in 1947, Making Books is 10 minutes of solid amazement for today. Ever wonder how flat-back/cloth-bound books were mass-produced from the author to readers? Types were made line by line, then page by page, then into a wax mould, finally ended up as a copperplate for print. Watching those machines gathering the pages, trimming the 3 edges simultaneously (sort of) and casing in are just mesmerizing.


Via Peter Verheyen.

My friend, artist and educator, Marianne Petit has just completed a series of illustrated books based on the German children book Der Struwwelpeter (1845) by Heinrich Hoffmann. Each of her books tells a single mortality story that has an extreme disastrous ending resulted from a child’s misbehavior. Each book utilizes a different book form: tunnel, flag, accordion and pop-up.

Marianne told me that she wanted to work with paper. “I find cutting paper to be extremely satisfying and there is something just really lovely about holding something in your hand and having it do something before your eyes,” she explains.


Augustus Who Would Not Eat His Soup, Marianne Petit (2010)

By cutting every other page by 5mm, this book can be flipped in both ways and display entirely different content. (Apparently this post was saved in draft since last July! Thanks Sarah.)

Via swissmiss

The second season of Isabella Rossellini's Green Porno is back! In the first season, Rossellini educates us on the sex lives of insects; now in this second season, she is presenting to us the reproductive habits of marine animals.

The series is full of giant paper sculptures to demonstrate her entertaining yet scientifically accurate topics of animal sexual behaviors. Twenty-two distinctive giant paper penises are featured in the latest episode, "Why Vagina."

While I was in San Francisco, I stopped by the Museum of Craft and Folk Art to see the The Shape of Things: Paper Traditions and Transformations exhibition (now finished). It displayed highlights of paper art traditions from a few countries: China (jianzhi, papercutting), Japan (origami and katagami, paper stencils), the Philippines (parol, Christmas lanterns from the Philippines), and Korea (Joomchi).

Though the exhibition was really small, it was quite an informative overview on how traditional paper arts are incorporated and transformed with contemporary art. There were a few sculptural and photography pieces, as well as Robert Lang's take on the relationship between origami and mathematics.

Robert Lang explaining how to combine origami with mathematics and engineering on TED.com:


Visit the exhibition's archive site for links to artists' works.

A bunch of people have asked me over time how to use their own fabric for book covers. In other words, they want to know how to turn their own fabric into book cloth.

The bottom line is, you need to back you fabric with some form of paper. Japanese tissue paper (kozo) is tough yet flexible so it's a great choice.

As for the adhesive between the fabric and backing paper, wheat/rice should be used. Paste is better because it dries transparent and it does not set instantly so it will you give time to maneuver. You'll also need some form of big brush (bamboo brush is great) or rubber roller to get rid of the bubbles.

The following video explains the gist of paper-backing a piece of fabric. The use of a scraper to spread the paste is just, I think, amazing.

Paper-backing silk for binding books

However, here are a few things that I'd do it differently:
1. I'd not apply glue to the fabric, it's just easier not to.
2. I'd mount the fabric-paper combo onto a clean vertical glass surface, and smooth it with a big bamboo brush. It's more economical.
3. I'd put a piece of scrap paper between the glass surface and the bookcloth so that I can lift the bookcloth up easily.

If you have a great clip shot on your digital camera/camcorder, or even on your camera phone, would you like to create a flip book for it?

Designer and animator Bennett Hazlip has created an After Effects template so that he could easily export a clip into a sequence of JPEGs for printing. Once printed and cropped, and, of course, binded, your clip will become an impressive flip book!

Technology working hand-in-hand with bookbinding!

Via Craftzine.

CBS Sunday Morning did a segment on bookbinding this past Sunday. Rita Braver interviewed bookbinder Jamie Kamph, who believes that "books should be read and handled," (which I can't agree with more); John Bitwell, the curator of printed books and binding at The Morgan Library in New York; and Herb Weitz, the owner of WMG Bookbinding in New York. (Link courtesy of J. Schmidt.)