The wonder, the art, the magic, the work of creating a printed book — often forgotten in this digital age — is demonstrated in the above video. Filmmaker Glen Milner (@glen_milner) visited Smith Settle bookbinders near Leeds, England, where the owners, Don Walters and Tracey Thorne, allowed him to film the making of the 17th Slightly Foxed (@FoxedQuarterly) book, Suzanne St Albans’ memoir Mango and Mimosa, from start to finish. The Telegraph (@Telegraph) reports:
Here, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at the printing plates, the stitching of the “signatures” (folded sections), the pressing and gluing, the adding of the ribbon bookmark and head and tail bands, the making of the final hardcover in green linen cloth and the numbering of the copies. All of it done with great care, much of it by hand.
The video below on Kottke.org (@Kottke) shows that back before print on demand, laser printers, and the Internet, even machine printing and binding was a time-consuming laborious process, that took teams of people working together to produce just one book.
Just for fun, here’s a video of what the help desk would look like back in the day when print books overtook scrolls.
And, one artist looks at print books and sees a canvas from which to carve art.
Also see our previous blogposts “The Technology of Storytelling” and “Introducing the New Book.”
Whether pbook or ebook, contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you pursue publishing in this digital age.
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