A Passion For Handmade Books: Binderies and Artisans

We don't usually like to brag, but...

We are pretty proud of ourselves this week at JBB. Last Monday, we started a pretty intense project: 300 custom handmade leather journals. The steps of this project looked a little something like this:

1. Tear and fold almost 15,000 sheets of paper into neat 12 page signatures.

2. Cut 300 pieces of leather, from full cowhides to sheets about 7"x18", as well as 300 strap closures.

3. Hole Punch each sheet of leather for binding sticthes.

4. Stitch every book together.

5. Affix each strap, complete with color coordinated stone embellishment.

6. Individually wrap & package each book.

This may not seem like that big of a deal, but did I mention the six of us made all 300 journals in the span of three days, while maintaining our regular business duties? Like I said, we're very proud. Here are some photos of the final products:

Interested in some custom handmade leather journals, or possibly a One of a Kind Leather Journal? Drop us a line about your idea - we love new creative projects!

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And speaking of book artists..

Every once in awhile, a project comes along that sounds like too much fun to pass up. When a recent customer contacted our art department with the challenge of creating custom distressed leather hand bound books entitled "It Only Takes One," for the clothing company Cult of Individuality, we jumped at the chance to produce something beautiful.

You may not know that leather can be naturally distressed (i.e. if a cow had a scar, chances are the scar shows on the leather hide), or it can be distressed by hand. We honestly didn't know how difficult distressing leather would be! We started with this rich and supple charcoal leather.

In order to achieve the right look, our art director Alison went through some rough and tumble with the leather in our gravel parking lot.

This might not be the traditional leather distressing method, but the results were stellar:

Throw in a drill press, hand sewn binding, and French folded pages, and Voilà!

Needless to say, we were all very proud of the art department when the books were finished.

If you are in need of a custom leather book, or you're looking for some other examples of Distressed Leather Journals or Photo Albums, give us a buzz. We can't take on every custom project, but we're happy to listen and as always, happy to help!

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Book Artists are alive and well

They live everywhere. They work with a set of utensils that, to the unknowing eye, appear to be unusual torture tools. They're book artists, and there may even be one living in your neighborhood.

Some book artists specialize in one of a kind books, while others produce small editions. Ranging from "objects" to scrolls to printed & bound editions, the art of the book has been around for some time. Experts on the subject credit English poet & artist William Blake with the origin of the form. Together with his with Catherine, Black wrote, illustrated, colored and bound his pieces, and in addition to inspiring potential book artists everywhere, he integrated the world of self-publishing & self-distributing with the world of text, imagery, and art form.

Book artists today work with many different materials, styles, techniques, and purposes. Because we're such fans of journals, and of excellent craftsmanship, here are a couple of book artists making beautiful pieces, and giving all of us bookbinders a good name.

photos courtesy of Teo Studio

photos courtesy of Serena Olivieri

As for us, we're happy we get the chance to create One of a Kind Leather Journals, as well as Leather Photo Albums, Fine Leather Wallets & Accessories, and the like, every day. We even carry a collection dedicated to the father of book arts himself; view our William Morris Paperblanks Journals.

Big thanks to Etsy & Design*Sponge for bringing these talented artists to our attention!

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Malcolm Gladwell: Collected

Spotted this morning on TheDieline.com, a beautifully produced set of Malcolm Gladwell's works, Malcolm Gladwell, Collected. The set is bound in beautiful oatmeal linen, screenprinted, lavishly illustrated, and housed together as a box set in a lovely matching slipcase.

It's a blend of some of my favorite things! Great design, innovative book design, and Malcolm Gladwell's writing.

Great work! by designer Paul Sahre and illustrator Brian Rea

Buy it on Amazon

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The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Experience

Over the weekend, I was lucky enough to be invited to visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. After almost a decade dedicated to her passion for art collecting, Gardner opened her museum in 1903 in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood; she insisted to her architect that the building be built to her exact specifications. Upon entering the museum, patrons are almost immediately transported to an extravagant 15^th Century Venetian style villa. The first floor contains a breathtaking courtyard and garden, complete with fountains and a tile mosaic floor.

The Museum's preeminent collection contains more than 2,500 paintings, sculptures, tapestries, furniture, manuscripts, rare books and decorative arts; Titian, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Manet, Degas, Whistler and Sargent are just some of the artists whose works are featured. If you’ve heard of the Gardner Museum before, it may be due to the fact that one of the most famous art heists in history took place there. On March 18, 1990, two thieves disguised as Boston Police Officers entered the museum and stole thirteen works of art, including three Rembrandt works and a Vermeer painting. In the Dutch Room of the building, there are beautifully ornate, gilded and empty frames left to symbolize the artworks, which have never been recovered.

Perhaps my favorite items included in the collection were the rare books, particularly the ones that I found to be a bit, shall we say, stylistically familiar. Take a look!

Commisione of Doge Cristoforo Moro to Domenico Diedo as procurator of St. Mark, 1464, and our Paperblanks Gutenberg Bible Parabole Journal.

Commisione of Doge Francesco Donato to Girolamo Morosini as Captain of Brescia, 1547, and our Della Fattoria Leather Photo Album.

Commissione of Doge Giovanni II Cornaro to Giovanni Bollani as Podestà of Chioggia, 1718, and our Jumbo Nettuno Leather Journal.

Overall, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has quite a collection. The walk along the line between genius and eccentricity varies between delicate tip-toeing and raucous marching, which proves for a truly unique and amazing experience. If you’re in Boston and you’d like to visit the museum, check out their website, http://www.gardnermuseum.org.

For a closer look at the items Jenni Bick Bookbinding carries that are inspired by such works, check out our Leather Photo Albums, Leather Journals, and Paperblanks Journals.

Museum photos via.

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A New Type of Type for Embossing

We have been waiting and waiting... The package from England finally arrived!

Last month, we decided it was time to replace our old and worn letters we use for custom typeset inscriptions. Because we emboss thousands of names every year, and the lead letters are somewhat soft, they eventually wear out and make uneven impressions. So we need to replace them about once a year. The Times new Roman font we have been using was also starting to look a bit clunky to me.

I did a little research into how we could break out of the cycle of replacing the letters so frequently, and I came across P & S Engraving who makes hand finishing tools, dies, and letter sets, all in brass, which is much harder and cleaner to work with.

From their website:

"Our brass type is made to the most rigorous standards from the same hard brass used for our other tools. The body is first machined to the exact point size and then ground accurately to the type height.

The characters are deeply engraved using special jigs to ensure perfect alignment and excellent definition on most surfaces, when used either by hand in a typeholder, or in a blocking press."

Needless to say, these top quality letters cost a whole lot more to purchase, and it was scary to make such a huge investment. But they should last us much longer. And it was so fun to open up the box and see a whole fresh new set of letters to work with. Everyone here went "oooh" and "aaah" because they are shiny gold color, it was like opening a jewelry box.

Shiny . Like jewelry.

Like a historical monument, right?

We made new storage trays for the new letters to live in.

Here's the first embossing job we did with the new letters. Three initials don't really show off all the best features, but you can see how crisp and clean the embossing is.

Wondering about the font? It is called Goudy Old Style, and is an antique style font, with graceful curves. I like to call it "Times New Roman's Sexy Sister"

Here's a comparison between Goudy Old Style and Times New Roman:

I am seriously in love with these new letters! It makes the daily typesetting so much fun!

What do you think? Do you prefer Goudy Old Style, as I do? Or do you disagree? If we were to add another font set, what font should it be?

Let me know in the comments section below.

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Technorati Tags: Embossing, Engraving, Goudy Old Style, Printing, Times New Roman, Typesetting

Calligraphy Demonstration

Have you ever wondered how calligraphy handwriting is done? Well, wonder no more!

Here is a video demonstrating how it is executed --

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Wallets: A Timeline

In Ancient Greece, wallets were stocked with provisions - enough so that Ancient Greeks could be seen eating directly out of them. With the increased use of metal as currency, the Renaissance saw wallets take forms conducive to holding coins. They were often leather pouches that attached to one's belt.

By the time the 19th Century rolled around, wallets were being used to carry everything from dried meat to treasures to items that were not to be exposed. Furthermore, it was considered "semi-civilized" to carry a wallet on your belt and, as such, it was very uncommon. In Spain, wallets were mostly used as cigarette cases at the time.

It was not until the 1950s that wallets took forms similar to those available today. With the introduction of the first credit cards, designers quickly came out with the card slots we are all now familiar with.

With that, we're proud to introduce our line of Pinetti Leather Wallets.

Old world feel. Sleek, modern design.

All of our leather wallets can be found here.

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Art Student Hand-Illuminates, Binds a Copy of Tolkien’s Silmarillion

This German art student, Benjamin Harff, decided, for his exam at the Academy of Arts, to do something only slightly ambitious — to hand-illuminate and bind a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion. It took him six months of work. In very 21st century elvish-monk style, he hand-illuminated the text which had been printed on his home Canon inkjet printer. He worked with a binder to assemble the resulting book.