Category Archives: Book Arts

Book Arts, Workshops

My recent bookbinding workshops at UAL

I’ve been teaching on the BA Graphic Communication Design at Central Saint Martins and BA Graphic Design at Camberwell this year, here are some photos of what we’ve done.

Stage 2 and 3 workshops at CSM

GCD Stage 2: Making a collaborative concertina book with hand-carved rubber stamps. February 2022
The finished concertina book.
Some of the students’ rubber stamp prints.
Students making a phase box. Instructions can be found in Kathy Abbott’s book, there is a copy available for reference in the Publications workshop.
Phase box close-up.
Phase-box closed.
Buttonhole book: the binding is explained in Keith Smith’s book “Non-Adhesive Binding: Books without Paste or Glue: 1” which can be found in the Publications Workshop and the UAL library.
Pop-up card with a house. Instructions can be found in Duncan Birmingham’s book “Pop-up design and paper mechanics” which is available for reference in the Publications Workshop.
We had fun drawing the details of the pop-up houses!

After-school bookbinding club at Camberwell

Printmaking session: Making rubber stamps for decorating book covers or endpapers.
More rubber stamps.
Gloria (a year 3 Graphic Design student) showed us this beautiful book she made. The pages are sewn together with a sewing machine, the binding is handsewn.
The inside of Gloria’s book features collected drawings from other students.
Gloria showed us how to sew this binding, the technique resembles cross-stitch
We finished off our books by adding rubber stamp covers.
Artist's books, Book Arts

Pattern Repeat

Pattern Repeat
Alexandra Czinczel
October 2015. Concertina book, 10.2 x 11.2 cm, 5 colour screenprint.
Signed and numbered edition of 35.

No. 1-3 come in a special edition with hand knitted cover in a solander box with a compartment of knitting / sewing tools and materials.

No. 4-35: Book only.

A knitting pattern depicting fish is repeated to form a landscape image. The image is folded and bound into a concertina book. The book is enclosed in a knitted pouch in a solander box. The pouch is knitted in the pattern pictured in the book. The pouch is sewn shut, so the book cannot be viewed, which does not matter because the information contained in the book is also contained in the knitted cover. However, it is possible to view the book. The box provides the reader with the tools necessary to undo one row of waste yarn, pick up the stitches and leave them on stitch holders. Thus the book can be removed, viewed and put back inside. Then the pouch can be sewn back together according to the instructions. Alternatively, readers who would rather not undo the cover can download the contents of the book in PDF format.
The box contains the book in a hand knitted cover using Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift, 1 booklet of instructions, 2 stitch holders, 1 darning needle and small amounts of yarn in all colours used in the cover for replacing waste yarn and also to darn moth-holes, should they occur.
(This text refers to the special edition only.)
The knitting pattern can be used by the reader for non-commercial purposes.
Special edition (Nos. 1-3): £120
Book only edition: £20
Free download: Pattern Repeat
Contact: alex@thechinchilla.com