The Book of Drawings. Art Book research

The end goal of this project is to produce a handmade book filled with drawings. There are many different and interesting ways of doing this, which is what I now want to look at.

Classic bound

The first and most well-known way is classic bound. This is how most hard back books are made as it's fairly straight forward. It was traditionally done with leather but now it can be achieved using most fabrics. Older bound books tended to have patterns embossed into the cover, which sometimes show up in more recent additions. This tends to be a popular way of producing a book as once complete it appears to be of a high stranded.

A good example of a Classic bound book

External stitch

A very popular way of hand binding a book would be by External stitch. This looks a bit more experimental than classic binding but it allows for more craft elements. It’s good for making journals and sketch books as it’s not as time intensive as classic binding. It’s interesting to see the stitches of the book as most binding techniques hide it.

This is what External stitch looks like, there are lots of ways to do it.

Pop up 

This effects the content of the book more than the binding. Pop ups are very popular in books for small children but a lot of work goes into making them work. They can be as simple or as complicated as possible and are considered works of art in themselves. They have been appearing more often as paper craft becomes more popular. 

A pop up from a hand made book.

Postcard/ journal

This method is not as common but I still want to mention it. Some books will be made with compartments for storing post cards or similar such things. Some more recent books come with things like old maps, nicknacks and paper craft. They are often aimed at children but I think they are an interesting concept. Some good examples would be the Dragonology books.