First shipment abroad

Just shipped two books abroad, to the US. From Amsterdam to Nieuw Amsterdam (no idea why they later renamed the place to New York.......).

Hopefully many more books will follow!

For more info, please click here.

The second edition

It took much longer then I had anticipated, but here is the second edition! I am very pleased with them and I am looking forward to contacting the buyers that have waited for so long (sorry).

The fact of the matter is that book making is a craft and it takes a lot of practice. In particular positioning a sheet of glued paper exactly correct proved to be difficult, especially with the long book (Maandagmorgen). But now that I have done it a couple of time (and with the support of Brutus), I am pretty good at it. The next batch will be much much faster.

I will be have a stand on the Pure Markt in Frankendael on the last Sunday of May. Hopefully this edition will be sold out at the end of that day, at the latest. :-)

Meet Brutus!

For the first of the covers I made at home I used make-shift tools like a rolling pin and a bucket full of water. Although the results have been satisfactory, some covers have gotten a little blistery. So I decided I needed a bit more pressing force.

In comes Brutus! Brutus is all about force.

He was built in the twenties or so and designed for copying work. At some point he became obsolete (fortunately for Xerox) and was stored in a wet environment. Brutus wears the scars in the shapes of rust pits in his cast-iron body.

Later he was apparently considered 'decorative', a thick layer of black paint was used to cover up the rust and golden striping stickers were added for the rustic effect. Imagine the humiliation!

So a little TLC was needed. When I first tested the press it sounded like a group of pigs being driven into the slaughterhouse. So I opened up the moving parts, cleaned them from rust and dried out grease, and applied a generous amount of new grease.

And now Brutus can show off his strength yet again!

Woodwork

When you attempt to makes books yourself, it comes in handy if you have some basic tools and a bit of wood lying around.

Based on my experiences with the previous set of books, I decided to improve my rig. Firstly, I made the templates for the drilling out of MDF board again. Previously I used a piece of cardboard, but that's not really durable. It's too easy to drill a little bit next to the intended spot. Secondly, I used higher pieces of wood along the sides. In the attempt before I had a ridge of 1 cm with was barely enough to hold the paper in place. A constant struggle which I do not want to repeat.

I made the setup for the two books at once. To the left the arrow binding for 'Roltrap', to the right the larger holes for 'Maandagmorgen'.

Cutting corners

360 of them.....

Before you can glue onto- and fold the cover print around the cardboard the corners need to be cut. With 90 prints that makes 360 corners. But that was the least of my work this weekend. Most time I spent measuring and drawing the outlines of the cardboard pieces on the 90 prints.





Next time I'll be cutting corners there though. By simply making duplex prints and print the outlines on the flip side of the paper. Why didn't I came up with that before....... :-)

Humble beginnings.....

......of 22 new books. Half of which are already reserved, which is a great thing. It is a lot of fun (and some hard work) making these books. And then to see that it is appreciated is really rewarding.

The books are finished!

Finally, the books are ready. It has been a really interesting - yet lengthy - process of designing, printing, cutting, binding etcetera. It makes me appreciate graphic arts projects even more then I used to. And at the end, holding real books, gives a big kick!

Here's what I made:

Book 1; 'Roltrap' 33cm x 21cm, appr. 45 pages, hard cover.

Detail of the binding, which is basically Japanese stab binding with a twist.

Book 2; 'Maandagmorgen', 40cm x 22cm, appr. 35 pages, hard cover.

Details of the binding with screws.

I made 5 of both as a first (signed and numbered) batch. I've kept one of both as a sample, the remaining 4 of 'Perron' were sold out at the exhibition. A 'Maandagmorgen' is still available for 35 euro excluding shipping. If you're interested, just visit my website www.joco.me and send me a mail.

I will be making a second batch of books soon. Again, drop me a note to secure yours.

25 holes - 3 meters of thread

I could finally start sowing the books. Occasionally frustrating, however very rewarding once a book is finished.

25 holes

Per book. I am glad my wife bought me a workmate.......

Almost books

Cut and creased

Japanese stab binding

A colleague showed me a booklet he made himself using the cahier stitch. This inspired me to do research on book binding techniques. So I discovered Japanese stab binding. Elegance through simplicity.

Yet making a tight book is not that easy (I found out the hard way......). So I adjusted an interesting pattern with arrows to my book's dimensions, made a mold from wood and experimented with the best way to drill holes.

So now I have the first batch of booklets with pictures from the roltrap series (click here for the pics) and the books turned out really nice. Glad they did, as my thumb still hurts from all the stitching.

In case you are interested in one of these books, just drop me an email or visit me tomorrow the 12th of August at the Pure Markt (website) in the Amstelpark.