Book Making Folio Making &C

Not sure where to put this but I know there are others here besides me who have spent time over the years making books by hand that contain their photographs, and there are also folks who have made presentation Folios to house loose prints.

I hope this thread ( and others maybe ? ) will start to be a resource for people who want to use the book arts as a vehicle to present their work, and I hope that folks who have spent time and energy making books by hand might graciously share some of their techniques and tips and resources to help others.

To start with there are some book making tutorials on you tube
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=book+making+tutorial
I can't say I have looked at a lot of them but they seem to be a pretty good start.

There are also books on making books
http://keithsmithbooks.com
https://www.amazon.com/Books-Boxes-Portfolios-Step-Step/dp/0830634835

There are also book making services at local print making shops and through online services like blurb.com

How is it that you make books? Open or closed spine? Print shops? Online services?
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I've made both open ( japanese bound ) and closed spine books. Some using the actual photo paper as the book page, others
with the images "tipped in" ( one edge glued down ) too. I've never glued tipped in the spine/hinge edge though and I was thinking of making something where I did that next. Always something fun to try

accordion style with nice Japanese paper and Art Deco end covers

Thanks Peter !
here's a link to making accordion style books
https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-an-Accordion-book/
and I just found a link to a website called dyi book binding
http://www.diybookbinding.com/basic-diy-bookbinding-demonstration-with-hot-glue-gun-video/

( the book press is extremely handy ! )

This is a link to how to do a proper Japanese style of binding - I've made quite a few books this way, it's much better & stronger than most of the westernised approximations of this binding style & doesn't need much in the way of serious tools.

The other binding style that works well for ease of making is 'sewn boards binding' - it's pretty straightforward & lets the pages lie nicely flat when opened. A quick Google should find some easy tutorials.

Other critical factor if you're binding a book & tipping in images is that you need to compensate for the thickness of the tip-ins so the book doesn't bulge...

Other headaches to consider mainly involve grain direction of papers & the propensity of some double sided inkjet papers to offset if looked at wrongly. If you have a good relationship with an HP Indigo operator or similar, you can get sheets output with correct grain direction, set up ready for folding, collating, binding into 8pp/ 12pp/ 16pp signatures. The quality can be pretty amazing, if the press operator cares about what you are trying to achieve. Pretty huge choice of paper too. And that's before leaping down the rabbit hole of deciding to print the text via letterpress...

I love this! Thanks for all the info... <<<runs to her studio>>>

Thanks this is interesting

Valerie said:

I love this! Thanks for all the info... <<<runs to her studio>>>

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Careful ! .. Like most fun stuff, it can get kind of addictive

jnantz said:

Careful ! .. Like most fun stuff, it can get kind of addictive

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I have cameras and a darkroom.... I know addiction..

Valerie said:

I have cameras and a darkroom.... I know addiction..

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Just wait Valerie, you'll be buying 160 year old paper cutters and nipping presses, and exotic materials to cover book board.

I get great papers for good prices at hiromi
Paper in Los Angeles...
You can order a selection pack
Talas in NYC I'd another good source

John Purcell Paper is another excellent place to buy paper from - their website is entertainingly antique, but they have an up to date pdf catalogue & are responsive via phone & email (essentially, they're too busy to bother updating their online presence). If they don't stock the paper or board you need, they may well be able to find something suitable, or get it made to order. They do have a minimum order of 25 sheets of paper (though some handmade ones are 10 sheets & some boards are per sheet), but they'll guillotine to size for a low fixed fee. Highly recommended.

I did bookbinding course covering several techniques, worth doing if you can find one locally. For my final project I made a hard cover book using Hahnemuehle Book Rag, double sided and grain oriented so it folds properly. Permajet also do a double sided, grain oriented paper I think. I inkjet printed a series of images that suited the texture of the paper. It came out fantastic. I created text in Photoshop and scanned into Lightroom to print from there; a bit messy but if I had InDesign skills that would be better.

The most interesting aspect was the discipline and craft of image selection to tell a story and I learned a lot about that aspect from the whole process.

A good book to get is: Making Books: A Guide to Creating Hand-Crafted Books