Jo Bird
Pinner, London, UK,  Professional

Venus and Adonis
by William Shakespeare

Bound in pale biscuit goatskin with a dark grey goatskin spine. Split board construction. Recessed onlays of finely pared calfskin hand dyed in various shades of red. Carbon tooling on both boards and on the spine.

The abstract design is based on my drawings, which I am interested in translating onto leather with onlays and tooling. Here I'm aiming to represent Venus and Adonis in opposite visual forms, with reference to Adonis's rejection of Venus.

Tom McEwan
Glengarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland, Non-Professional

Intimate Leaves from a Designer's Notebook by John Ryder

The covering leather and doublures are of hand-dyed fair goat decorated with print and flaked gold techniques with addition of blind and gold-tooled lines and textures. Main design elements are constructed from scarf joints, inlays and onlays, again of hand-dyed/decorated goatskin. All edges and endpapers are decorated with ink, laser print, flake and tooled gold, acrylic ink and watercolour.

The text of the book is an examination and comment on design practice and aesthetics; the design of the binding adopts and complements some of these principles and, in effect, becomes ‘Leaves from a bookbinder’s notebook’.

Richard Beadsmoore
London, UK, Non-professional

Shakespeare’s Sonnets
by William Shakespeare, wood-engravings by Helmut Weissenborn

The book is sewn on five Pleister tapes laced into the boards. The top-edge is airbrushed; there are hand-sewn silk endbands, leather joints and leather doublures. The book is covered with Harmatan terracotta leather. There are six groups of recessed onlays on the front board and a further six on the backboard.

Each group consists of fourteen lines in seven different coloured leathers arranged in the Shakespearian sonnet form of AB, AB, CD, CD, EF, EF, GG. My aim in this design was to convey the idea that great variety can be achieved whilst following a formal structure. Although only using the same seven colours each panel is different.

Paul Johnson
Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, UK, Professional

The Shoe House
by Paul Johnson

Unique carousel pop-up book. Text, illustrations, paper engineering, binding and sculptural spine by the book artist. The story of the Emperor and the Nightingale is restructured with ‘There was an old Lady who lived in a shoe…..’. 
Materials: Saunders Waterford watercolour paper, industrial textile dyes; applied pen work and gold inlays. Dovetail and interlocking hinges join the pop-up sections. As there are no folds the pages can be dismantled.

Opening instructions: Remove pin from clasp. Open book to 360 degrees and replace pin in clasp-thus the book can be locked in both the closed and open positions.

Paul Johnson
Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, UK, Professional

Jasmine
by Paul Johnson

Unique carousel pop-up book.  Haiku text, illustrations, paper engineering, binding and sculptural spine by the book artist.  The story of a poor girl who finds happiness amongst birds. 
Materials: Saunders Waterford watercolour paper, industrial textile dyes; applied pen work and gold inlays. Dovetail and interlocking hinges join the pop-up sections. As there are no folds the pages can be dismantled.

Opening instructions: Remove pin from clasp. Open book to 360 degrees and replace pin in clasp – thus the book can be locked in both the closed and open positions.

Ann Tout
Fareham, Hampshire, UK.  Non-professional

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by William Shakespeare
An illustrated work on the play

Concertina binding of handmade paper in boards covered in grey goatskin with onlays and gold work. The slipcase is translucent vellum.

The concept and design come from the Greek red-figure vases. The silhouette on the boards has been created using two different shades of gold as a textured background, the neck of which has a band of theatrical masks. The concertina pen drawn pages and the slipcase of an Athenian palace are in colours and images inspired by these vases.  Through the column’s apertures a glimpse of gold can be seen giving the illusion of the moon.

Barbara Schmelzer
Brookvale, NSW, Australia, Professional

Zoology of New Holland
by George Shaw

A Danish millimetre binding. The spine is of brown goat leather with black hot-foiled title. The boards are covered in decorated paper made by the binder and have red hot-foiled decoration on the boards, reference the Australian landscape. Hand-sewn silk endbands.

Dominic Riley
Ulverston, Cumbria, UK, Professional

The Life of Sterling
by Thomas Carlyle, 1851

The binding had broken at the joint, with the endpaper, mull spine liner, and cloth cover completely split, and the corners damaged. The cover cloth was scuffed generally, with much loss of colour.

The book was disbound, and the top edge of the book was cleaned to remove dirt. Japanese paper was used to repair the endpapers. The spine was relined with mull and the original paper liner. The boards were paste-washed to remove dirt and staining. The corners and board edges were repaired with dyed Japanese paper. The covers were re-coloured with acrylic. The book was rebacked with dyed cotton. The endpaper joints were further repaired using a thin Japanese paper laid over the first repair. The spine cloth was trimmed and reattached. The binding was waxed and polished.

Jan Camps
Diest, Belgium, Professional

Schat der Gesontheyt
by John Van Beverwyck, 1643

Bound on three double, raised cords. Raised chain stitches. Embroidered headbands in two coloured silks.  Boards covered with natural cow-leather, dyed with Cuircolor and Tandy leather dye. On both boards a decoration in ‘cut leatherwork’. Clasps, corner pieces and shoes in brushed iron. Blind tooling on the back. Raised cords and chain stitches, on the thickness and the insides of the boards. Kept in a clamshell box with a blind-tooled goatskin back and finished with hand-marbled papers.

Tatjana Gretschmann
London, UK, Non-professional

The Song of Songs which is Solomon’s
(Kranich Verlag, 2003; special print for ‘bel libro 2003’; limited edition of 1000)

Full leather binding covered in crimson goatskin. The book has been sewn in unsupported link stitch and secondary sewing with full linen board lamination attachment. There are leather jointed endpapers and double-core hand-sewn silk endbands. The binding is tooled in gold and moon-gold leaf.

The design echoes the relationship and the eternal dance of two entities around each other, with the round and oval shapes mirroring the circles in the design of the text block.

Lars Hedegaard   
Aarhus, Denmark, Professional

Arets Ring
Jens Gregersen
(Johannes Larsen Museet, 2008)

Spine and sides in oasis. Headbands red oasis and silk. Top edge coloured decorated and gold tooled.

Other hands: Decoration on the spine, top edge and end papers made from the original drawing by the author.

Ann Tout
Fareham, Hampshire, UK. 
Non-professional

The Periodic Table
by Primo Levi

Full leather binding in yellow goatskin with blind tooling. Louise Brockman endpapers, sewn headbands, rough edge gilt.

The concept and design are from the structure of the earth and through these twisting shapes formed from self-designed finishing tools come the layers in which various chapters in Levi’s life may be seen. The spine with its tumbling bricks represents the stairwell down which he met his death.

Tiina Piisang
Tallinn, Estonia, Professional

Luuletused (Poetry) 
by Aleksander Puškin

Limp binding with the constructions visible, boards are not fixed, white lambskin, dark brown gilded lambskin, metallic thread, Nepal paper, Fabriano coloured papers, leather appliqué with embroidery, goffered edges, laser engraving on spine.

The design of the binding uses the elements of Russian traditional handmade laces.

Paul C Delrue
Ruthin, Denbighshire, Wales, Professional

Remembering Jan Bohuslav Sobota
by Ladislav R. Hanka

Jan Sobota was a friend of mine, I had known him for many years when he first visited me, along with his wife, in my Chester Bindery. I felt honoured when I was asked by the author to bind this book in memory of a remarkable person. My book is covered in brown goatskin with an onlay on the front cover of salmon skin, for Jan was a great fisherman, and he had a fine sense of humour. I added blind tooling which was a kind of reaching out to all those friends over the years.  And, last but not least, his road to freedom and his resting home. If I had my way I would call the book ‘Jan Sobota’s road to freedom’.