After the visit to RSA, I was filled with inspiration for different kinds of books I could work on, that contained messages that were important to me.
1. A big screen printed book, probably with a page size of A3 or larger, containing text and an ample amount of white space. I wanted to leave the spine open to the eye, so I felt using a Coptic stitch with a thick thread would be interesting. I wanted the book to be about Gen-Z humour which is usually dark and used to cope with stress. I wanted to bring in music and song lyrics that had been popular during covid, and people spent long times stuck in isolation. The idea was to use this thoughtful process to really focus on the text, on the things Gen-Z says and listens to, to understand why it's so popular, why it's relatable and what makes it so.
To start with I tried Coptic Binding, instead of screen print I started experimenting with letterpress.
Coptic Binding
June 6th
This was perhaps the hardest binding I attempted. The part I found most difficult was attaching the last signature and the back board. I made mistakes in that part the first two times, as you can see with the small white floral notebook. Usually, Coptic binding doesn't use any endpapers, however, I quite like to past the first and last page to the board like they were end papers. This tightens up the tension and gives the book a clean and structured way.
Coptic stitch bookbinding (also called Coptic binding) is a way of binding pages of a book together without glue or staples. Like other types of hand binding, it’s an ancient art form. And even though it’s not the most common way of binding books these days, it’s a beautiful craft that adds style to handmade notebooks and sketchbooks.
Coptic stitching is an intricate technique, and it takes a while to stitch a book together, but the results are well worth the effort.
A Coptic stitch is a type of stitch used in handmade bookmaking to attach the pages and covers together. It’s similar to a chain stitch used in embroidery in that a chain of knots is formed.
These days, many books are made by gluing one side of the pages to a hard strip of card, called the spine. (This is the part that faces outward when books are lined up on a shelf). Books and notebooks held together by Coptic stitches don’t have, or need, a spine, as the stitches keep the pages together.
Coptic stitches are named as such because the technique is thought to have been developed by early Christians in Egypt—otherwise known as Copts—in the 2nd century CE.
Basically folded sections are section sewn and then glued down the spine. This gives a securely bound book with the stitches visible. Coptic bound books open very flat which is often desirable for example in instruction books or recipe books.
2. An Unending book without a perceived front or back, resembling a Mobius band. The text was to be negative news from 2020-2022, with a news clipping on each page. It was either one news clipping on each page or I wanted to set the type to be in the rhythm of the most popular song in 2020. I wanted to represent how bad news felt never-ending, without any relief in sight.
June 27th
I was experimenting with a modified version of an accordion book, where I cut it out from a single sheet of A4 magazine paper. I tried to follow the motion of the cuts to make it such that with each new page the book needs to be turned to be read. This is inspired by a book from Emil Goozairov. He has a video of a book he made which shows a book with an interesting motion, that I felt was very in keeping with the perpetual idea of this book.
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