Norse Journal

Norse Journal

$275 USD

Before Taxes and Shipping

About the Project

A journal infused with tradition, intricacy and durability. 

How to Purchase

There a couple ways to purchase this book. You can send me an email by clicking this link or check my listings on Etsy:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1485160396/norse-journal-green-morocco

Methods

One of my specialties of design is Cuir-ciselé and I wanted to work with some of the fine leather I have in my shop that I acquired from another well-respected bookbinder. Using Russell’s Oasis Goatskin as the base cover I recessed two panels for inlays of vegetable-tanned sheepskin with intertwined Norse dragons in the Urnes style of Viking art and design.

Gallery

We are excited to begin working with you. Boston Harbor Bookbindery is experienced in designing custom, one-of-a-kind books for each client.

Whether you’d like to restore a family heirloom, re-bind a personal favorite, or print a book from scratch; we have just what you need to make your dreams a reality.

PROJECT

Green Norse Journal

WHAT I DID

Full leather binding | Carved Inlay 

Gnomes, Fairies, Elves

Gnomes, Fairies, Elves

and Other Little People

$313.05 USD

Before Taxes and Shipping

About the Project

I acquired this book many years ago and it has been sitting on my shelf ever since. While it stared down at me working on other books, I never truly forgot about it. As time passed I would look up and see its tattered covers just begging to be worked on. So, once I had a free block on my schedule, I decided to get to work.

How to Purchase

There a couple ways to purchase this book. You can send me an email by clicking this link or check my listings on Etsy:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1282731139/rare-gnomes-fairies-elves-and-other

Methods

Being that the subject matter was in line with folklore and mythology, I wanted to have an exterior that would reflect the magical nature of its contents – while not going too over-the-top. Since the range of folklore is so wide, covering many of the known mythologies throughout the northern world, I opted to not carve a specific motif for the covers. While it was something I wanted to do, I felt that choosing one would thereby exclude the others. And, as my old master would often say, “sometimes, simpler is better”. Knowing when to extravagate is just as important as knowing when to keep things simple.

The leather for this book is a first for me. I’ve worked with Morocco many times in the past, but this was the first time I’d been able to acquire Vegetable Tanned Morocco. I found a leather supplier in California who happened to have a single hide left. It was a bit thinner, which was to be expected, however, I was astonished at just how supple it was when it arrived. I could tell the moment I began working that this would be a special book.

To achieve the color I chose a water-based leather dye called Evening Violet. After three coats of dye, I felt the color was a nice hue of the purple I was going for. Additionally, I wanted to ensure that the title panel would stand out a bit, being an Orchid color of the same material (which is honestly one of my favorite colors to work with). I feel the Orchid-colored leather is just a fantastic, deep, nuanced material and I love any chance I get to work with it.

Gallery

We are excited to begin working with you. Boston Harbor Bookbindery is experienced in designing custom, one-of-a-kind books for each client.

Whether you’d like to restore a family heirloom, re-bind a personal favorite, or print a book from scratch; we have just what you need to make your dreams a reality.

PROJECT

Gnomes, Fairies, Elves

WHAT WE DID

Full leather binding | Gold Leaf stamping | Hand Dye

Tea Time

Tea Time

About the Project

This is a set of books commissioned by a client whom I’ve worked with in the past. A truly creative way of gift expression, these are intended as a wedding gift to the author. This book is a personal exploration of one’s life and unpublished, meant for private enjoyment. It was sent to me in a .doc file and relatively unformatted. Thankfully, the client was excited to work on designing the contents of the book and we typeset the entire thing together. Sticking with the conventional publishing standards, what started as plain text turned into something both elegant and beautiful, on the inside and out.

Methods

While I’ve worked with this client in the past, on a project that was intricately decorated, we decided to go a different route on this one. We focused much of our efforts on ensuring the contents of the book looked good and laid out well. Conversely, the exterior remained simple and mostly undecorated. With this in mind, I provided some examples of leather we could use and the client chose a fine Morocco in a “chestnut” brown. This is from the Oasis line of Morocco (Goat) leather offered by J Hewit & Sons. This is one of the finest producers of high-quality bookbinding leather and I always enjoy working with it when I have the chance. Skiving the leather is particularly satisfying and the blade moves through the skin like a hot knife through butter. 

I chose this particular hide because of the deep pours and “skin character”. Normally, these attributes would be flattened out with an iron polisher to create a smooth, glass-like appearance. However, since the client wanted more of a “distressed” look, there is minimal manipulation. More attention was placed on polishing and working on the spine and title panel, as these are the parts of the book most often seen from a bookshelf. In sticking with the simple design expression, we also opted to use a plain endleaf, as opposed to the marbled paper I typically work with. These endleafs are Canson Mi-Teintes in tobacco brown. All of the paper used in the project are acid-free and produced in a neutral environment – which ensures longevity and resistance to the negative aging effects that come with time. 

Additionally, since this is a “twin” set of books, I took as much care and attention as possible to ensure that each book matched the other. Hand bookbinding is inherently a custom act, with each book expressing different attributes during the construction. Accounting for this, there is minimal difference between each book, though, there are subtle individualities that can be seen – if one knows where to look. 

Gallery

We are excited to begin working with you. Boston Harbor Bookbindery is experienced in designing custom, one-of-a-kind books for each client.

Whether you’d like to restore a family heirloom, re-bind a personal favorite, or print a book from scratch; we have just what you need to make your dreams a reality.

PROJECT

Tea Time

WHAT WE DID

Full leather binding | Gold Leaf stamping | Printing | Typesetting

Exploring Ireland’s Castles

Exploring Ireland's
Castles

About the Project

I was contacted by this client in February 2022 about the possibility of commissioning a gift set of two leather bound volumes with a custom design. Destined for he two daughters, she had a book in mind that she’d already purchased: “Exploring Ireland’s Castles” by Tarquin Blake. This is a lovely coffee-table style book with beautiful pictures of the Irish countryside and the castles that populate the Emerald Isle.

Wishing to celebrate her family’s Irish descent, this deep dive into medieval architecture has a wonderful aesthetic that seemed perfect for a deep brown, rustic leather cover and a custom design to match it. Being that it is a modernly bound book, I had to break it down entirely to begin from the ground up. 

Design

Methods

Cuir-ciselé is my favorite approach to decorating books in which the client has a desire to make something completely customized. While tooling or hot-stamping could have achieved this, as they often do in today’s world of bookbinding, I find an immense joy in working with this style. It’s how I got my start in bookbinding and I love coming back to it. 

The client knew she wanted a castle featured on the covers, stretch across the spine and onto the back cover in a continuous arc. So we began looking into the style of castle she’d like to see. Thankfully, I had a book right in front of me which had plenty of examples! So, I set out making a few mock-ups of castles for her and she chose the one we ended up using (and my personal favorite of the samples I made for her).

After we make the decisions needed to compile a picture of the final product, I always prefer making a second-phase mock-up of the design. This helps me determine how much time it will take, what techniques I need to employ, etc. First drawing it out with pencil directly on the leather, I then use my swivel knife to carve out the major features of the image. After wetting it, significantly, I take my hammer and chisel’s to work out the detail work.  

Finished

Though these two books are siblings, there are slight variations each design – see if you can pick them out 😉

The differences were not all intentional, but sprung forth out of the design process itself. Each sheepskin hide that’s used has its own distinct life that comes from the lived experience of the animal. They each respond differently to tooling and require complete focus while carving out the design. Each book, while nearly identical, has it’s own distinct feel and personality.

As with all the books I make, I grew deeply connected to these two in the process of creation. It warms my heart to know that they’re intended as gifts for the client’s daughters – mirroring my first adventures in bookbinding as a form of gift giving that is very personal. To say that I enjoyed making these two volumes would be a tremendous understatement and having them in my workshop was a deeply connective experience. I look forward to making more books like these.

We are excited to begin working with you. Boston Harbor Bookbindery is experienced in designing custom, one-of-a-kind books for each client.

Whether you’d like to restore a family heirloom, re-bind a personal favorite, or print a book from scratch; we have just what you need to make your dreams a reality.

CUSTOMER

Alford

WHAT WE DID

Full leather binding | Cuir-ciselé

Recipe for Life

Recipe for Life

About the Project

The author contacted me over the summer to print and bind two volumes of a book he’d written, intended as a gift for his daughters and designed to be an heirloom for his family and future generations.

Methods

Overall, we decided on a fairly simple design structure to allow the beauty of the materials shine. Due to the size of the final printed volumes, I suggested we work with fine sheepskin leather. It’s one of my favorites and I love any chance I get to use it. We opted not to decorate the spine too much, as it might detract from the overall design intentions. Black Morrocco was used for the title and author panels and hand-lettered with 24k gold leaf. 

The endleaf material is a marbled paper sourced from France and is unparalleled in quality and design. I personally love using this paper and try to incorporate it into most of my bindings. The head/tail bands are wrapped silk thread and a red silk ribbon was used for the page-marker on both volumes.

Gallery

We are excited to begin working with you. Boston Harbor Bookbindery is experienced in designing custom, one-of-a-kind books for each client.

Whether you’d like to restore a family heirloom, re-bind a personal favorite, or print a book from scratch; we have just what you need to make your dreams a reality.

PROJECT

Recipe for Life | Harrigan

WHAT WE DID

Full leather binding | Silver Leaf stamping | Marbled Paper

Musashi

Musashi

About the Project

Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa is a seminal Japanese epic that has influenced countless pieces of cultural significance. 

This epic tale stands at nearly 900-pages and follows the adventures of Shinmen Takezō, later known as Miyamoto Musashi, following the Battle of Sekigahara. Musashi journeys throughout feudal Japan training pupils, fighting in duels and challenging conventional figures of authority with his virtue and unparalleled skill as a swordsman. Originally published in 1935, and later translated to English in 1981, it comprises seven books detailing Musashi’s exploits leading up to his climactic duel with Sasaki Kojiro on Ganryujima.

Miyamoto Musashi is an infamous figure in Japanese culture even to this day. He is the author of The Book of Five Rings and is considered a  Kensei, a sword-saint of Japan.

Methods

Blue is a significant color among Japanese swordsmanship and I found a lovely dark leather from J. Hewit & Sons. The rough pours of the hide give the covers a unique look, almost that of living skin, and the leather has a wonderful texture. However, I would still like to perfect my tooling practices, as I found this leather to be a bit difficult to work on when applying heated tools. When deciding the design of the decorations, silver stood out to me and I chose to run with it. I’m happy I did and the effect turned out beautiful. Lastly, I applied the silver leaf to the top and bottom of the spine with five strokes bordering the endbands. I learned this technique from All About Bookbinding and have fallen in love with the look.

Gallery

We are excited to begin working with you. Boston Harbor Bookbindery is experienced in designing custom, one-of-a-kind books for each client.

Whether you’d like to restore a family heirloom, re-bind a personal favorite, or print a book from scratch; we have just what you need to make your dreams a reality.

PROJECT

Musashi | Eiji Yoshikawa

WHAT WE DID

Full leather binding | Silver Leaf stamping | Marbled Paper

Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone

Harry Potter
&
The Philosopher's Stone

Harry Potter
&
The Philosopher's Stone

About the Project

I was contacted by a private collector about two years ago asking if I’d be willing to rebind their first edition set of the Harry Potter series. At first, I was a bit nervous, as rebinding a first edition is considered taboo in the bookbinding/book collecting world. The thought behind this is many collectors desire to have the first edition as it was originally published and sent out into the world, providing a window through time of the experience one has when first encountering a particular literary work. I provided some options that we could do to honor this practice, such as a clamshell box or even a slip case. But they were not deterred and insisted that I rebind it. They’d seen my work in the past and desired to have their collection rebound by Boston Harbor Bookbindery. I was of course flattered and thankful for their kind words. Thus, I began the long and tedious process of designing the binding we’d go with.

Design

Methods

The original book was very attractive and I found it difficult to redesign. I ultimately decided to take the original layout and inlay all the necessary pieces to the leather covers. It worked perfectly and the collector loved the idea. We’d essentially created a leather version of the first edition, with traditional methods proven to last much longer than modern publishing practices. 

The front illustration and title were in excellent condition and were not at all difficult to remove and replace, which was the same case for the signature on the back cover. 

The spine was decorated with a fine Morocco and treated with 24k gold tooling to accent the panels and raised bands. The title and author panels were onlayed with a lovely, rich “orchid” purple leather (one of my favorites to use).

Gallery

The final result turned out beautifully and the collector was very happy to see their project come to life. I’m honored to have had the chance to work on this and even more thankful that the bindery is being noticed by private collectors. The remaining books in the Harry Potter series will be done soon and we are in the process of scheduling and designing them. 

We are excited to begin working with you. Boston Harbor Bookbindery is experienced in designing custom, one-of-a-kind books for each client.

Whether you’d like to restore a family heirloom, re-bind a personal favorite, or print a book from scratch; we have just what you need to make your dreams a reality.

Project

Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone

WHAT WE DID

Full leather binding | Inlay/Onlay | Gold stamping

House of Leaves

House of Leaves

About the Project

This book is a personal addition to my own collection. I wanted to do something fun that both challenged and excited me, utilizing the skills I’ve collected thus far in my binding endeavors. 

Design

Methods

I began with the design to be featured on the front cover. After reading this book I almost instantly knew what wanted to accomplish, and set about scouring for artists. The book itself is an enthralling journey, taking readers on a fantastic journey that is both engaging and mystifying. The premise, without giving too much away, is exploring a home that is larger inside than it is outside. Rooms measure bigger, walls are longer, and doors open to rooms not seen on the exterior. To accomplish this custom design I chose Cuir Ciselé as my preferred method. In order to do this properly, vegetable-tanned sheepskin was needed, and water-based coloring dyes.

Thus, I found some sketch work that caught my attention. I’ve long appreciated the geometric shapes containing a “world within” and felt. it would be a perfect way to capture the story, without detracting from the book itself. As with most custom work I do, I combined several different pieces to make my own design, the first of which is the picture of the diamond river backgrounded by mountains and a starry sky. However, I wanted the mountains to feel a bit different, so I chose another drawing from a map that I enjoy. The trees, too, were not detailed enough. So for this, I decided to do them free-hand.

The result turned out better than I’d expected. The leatherwork went well and the coloring took to the material superbly. Bordering the design I chose a 4-inch fillet with geometric patterns, to match the motif of the overall image.  

We are excited to begin working with you. Boston Harbor Bookbindery is experienced in designing custom, one-of-a-kind books for each client.

Whether you’d like to restore a family heirloom, re-bind a personal favorite, or print a book from scratch; we have just what you need to make your dreams a reality.

CUSTOMER

Boston Harbor Books

WHAT WE DID

Full leather binding | Cuir Ciselé | Gold stamping

Bijbel Restoration

Bijbel Restoration

About the Project

Family heirlooms are particularly special in my workshop and this bible is no exception. A Dutch ‘Bijbel’ printed and bound in 1910, survived the long journey across the Atlantic with the Kuiper family (now the Cooper family) and needed some work to bring it in to the new century.

Design

Methods

The original book laid in tattered form, as often many books from this age are these days. Sadly, I didn’t take any photos of the original condition. But suffice to say it was barely being held together. Thankfully, all pages were accounted for and repairs soon began on the rebinding of the Bijbel. 

To repair paper there are many products that exist these days and are widely available. The best, however, is a Japanese product called Kozo Washi paper. Its malleability, wet strength and long fibres make it an excellent choice for binders and conservators alike.

The leather selection was another matter entirely. One of the most popular choices for design binding is Morocco, a fine goat skin that is thin and beautiful to look upon. When I spoke with the family of the Bijbel, we decided to go in a different direction. Sheepskin is less used but no less beautiful. Much thicker than Morocco, 0.8 cm vs 0.2 cm (approximately) it adds weight and thickness to the finished product, not to mention the amount of paring needed to bring it to folding levels. Its grain and hair follicles are much wider, too, as adult sheep have thick fur and live a bit longer before slaughter. Sheepskin has often been seen in the binding world as less desirable to work with, for there are two layers of skin to contend with that can sometimes play off each other, making it difficult to tool and work with gold leaf.

Last, but certainly not least, are the raised sections of the design. A simple cross bordered by in-turned corners brings this design home with a simple and elegant look, intended to last generations. This was achieved with an ‘underlay’ of thicker boards and tooled after coloring was complete. 

We are excited to begin working with you. Boston Harbor Bookbindery is experienced in designing custom, one-of-a-kind books for each client.

Whether you’d like to restore a family heirloom, re-bind a personal favorite, or print a book from scratch; we have just what you need to make your dreams a reality.

Project

Bijbel Restoration

WHAT WE DID

Full leather binding | Inlay | Gold stamping

Monaco Sailing Journal

Monaco Sailing Journal

About the Project

I’ve been asked to make a few sailing journals and this one was a fun project to complete. Commissioned as a gift for a dear friend, the client wanted to capture the recipient’s love for Monaco and the Sea. 

Design

Methods

The stamp design centered around the name of the recipient’s vessel, Tobi, with the addition of a star and the Monaco subtitle. While the binding is full leather, it is quartered white with red panels, simulating the official colors of the Principality of Monaco.

We are excited to begin working with you. Boston Harbor Bookbindery is experienced in designing custom, one-of-a-kind books for each client.

Whether you’d like to restore a family heirloom, re-bind a personal favorite, or print a book from scratch; we have just what you need to make your dreams a reality.

CUSTOMER

Fazendin

WHAT WE DID

Full leather binding | Printing | Gold stamping | Leather tooling