The book as art. These bindings are executed in the finest materials often leather with hand worked designs. The level of skill and quality of work are such that often only a professional binder will notice the attention to the finest details. Fine bindings are appropriate for wedding and memorial books, they can be the perfect gift for the bibliophile. Lisa has exhibited her fine bindings in Canada, USA, Lithuania, Great Britain and Belgium. Lisa’s artist books can be found on the Off Piste Press page and more information about design bindings can be found below.
Design Binding
The steps involved in fine binding have changed little over the centuries. Printed pages are folded and gathered into signatures. The signatures are stitched through and sewn onto cords that are then interlaced onto boards. The boards are covered in leather. A flexible back is added. The paper is trimmed and may be marbled or gilded. Often the deckle edge is left with only the top edge trimmed and gilded. All of these processes are referred to as “forwarding”. The next step is “finishing” which refers to the decoration of the cover, including tooling and gilding, lettering, and otherwise embellishing both the outside and inside covers.
Fine bindings will often be executed with a particular design reflecting the content of the text. These are called design bindings and are viewed as objets d’art.
