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.

Folding an accordion with a card stock is always challenging. Firstly, you want to minimize the number of reverse folds so that the folds don't get weaken. Secondly, every fold must align exactly flushed. Because you rely on existing folds to guide new folds, little misalignments here and there will add up, and your spine will appear skewed.

Don't even bother measuring the segments. You'd probably never get a perfect accordion if you measure and mark every folds beforehand. Each fold should just follow the previous one. We score card stock before folding, but without measured guides, it's almost impossible to score. As the accordion becomes narrower, it becomes becomes harder to fold.

For those of you who are not following me on Twitter, these are what you've been missing for the last few months:

Resources & Inspirations

• OnAir's new DVD: The Art of Block Printing is out. Loved their DVD on bookbinding.
• Interesting historic binding on a Diamond Sutra from Dunhuang.
• Susan Mill's upcoming bookbinding classes in NYC.
• Great for inspirations: "beyondWords: BookFest 2009"
• Tip: Jig your cutting mat for efficient cutting
• Fun read that I couldn't put down: A Degree of Mastery by Annie Wilcox.

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."

Showtime's new series United States of Tara has a pretty stunning opening theme featuring pop-up books and paper sculptures as a stop-motion animation. The series is led by Toni Colette, one of my favorites, portraying a mother who is affected by dissociative identity disorder.

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.

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.)