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. 

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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.

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.  

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.

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An Imperfect Light

An Imperfect Light

About the Project

This year kicked off with a fantastic project that was commissioned as a gift for the author! In early January, I received an email asking if I’d be willing/able to create a one-of-a-kind edition, designed specifically with the author in mind.

I am always thrilled to get work like this because I feel that this is one of the foundational motivators for me as a bookbinder. I work on countless books throughout my day, often for personal libraries of special collectors. While it does not happen very often, I personally love creating special books for the authors who wrote them. There is something hermetically balanced about doing this and I always derive great joy in the finished work.

Design

Methods

To achieve this design, we rely on an old and seldom practiced technique in the worlds of both traditional & contemporary bookbinding: cuir-ciselé. Working with veg-tanned sheepskin, we’d carve the design on the front cover, then dye it Forest Green. The client also requested a decorated border to be stamped on both the front and back covers.

One of the main reasons cuir-ciselé is often avoided is simply due because of how time-consuming it is. While the design is relatively simple, drying and wetting the leather repeatedly takes a few days to fully work itself out.  The leather needs to be 100% dry before any coloring is applied.

 

Finished

The result was a book that was both elegant and tasteful, with a boldness that strikes character in any shelf it sits on. As a large-format book, approx 8.5″ x 11″, it sits well in the hand and feels lovely. This book was commissioned as a gift for the author’s personal library. We were honored to work with the raw manuscript that the author worked on herself. She’d already sent the manuscript to her publisher, however, this book was created as her own special edition.