In conjunction with Designer Bookbinders the Society organises an annual series of weekend workshops. These workshops offer structured, intensive learning from established teachers and are designed to stress the ‘hands-on’ approach where students complete a structure or technique following demonstrations from the teacher. The size of each workshop is limited to allow students to benefit from individual attention.
| 17-18 November 2012 Leather Surface Decoration Nicky Oliver |
23-24 March 2013 Cutting Corners Alan Fitch & Alan Wood |
| 19-20 January 2013 Decoration with Leather Paolo Taddeo |
20-21 April 2013 Part-leather Library Style Laura West |
| 23-24 February 2013 Due to high demand, this workshop will be repeated on 25-26 May. Paper Repair & Restoration Karen Vidler |
The 2012/13 programme has been organised by George Davidson.
For full details about each of the five workshops, please choose from the tabs above.
The fee for each workshop is £135 plus a charge for materials payable ‘on the day’. Each workshop takes place on a Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 5pm with suitable breaks.
We hope you will be tempted – but please remember that the workshops tend to fill up very quickly, so sign up early to avoid disappointment.
For further information please contact Sarah Jarrett-Kerr.
Surface Leather Decoration
Tutor: Nicky Oliver
Dates: 17-18 November 2012
Times: 10.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: Oxford House, Derbyshire
Street, London, E2 6HG
Fee: GBP135.00 (plus GBP25.00 materials
payable on the day)
This is a repeat of Nicky’s previous workshop as there was a long waiting list after booking opened.
Dyeing your own leather can be an extremely creative process and it can enable the binder to produce beautiful and unique covers for their design bindings.
This workshop will be a mixture of some short demonstrations and hands on experimenting. We will be using a selection of different dyes and exploring each of their uses and limitations.
The aim will be to develop a different approach to how you illustrate your design pieces. Natural leathers and “mini blank canvases” will be prepared and provided. We will concentrate mainly on the dyes and their different applications but we will also take our work further by applying cold blind tooling, reverse transfer printing and back-pared leather onlays.
Materials (leather, dyes etc.) will be provided.
Nicky Oliver discovered bookbinding whilst studying for her Graphic Design and Illustration degree in Bath in 1996. After working for over ten years in commercial binderies in London, she has established her own business, Black Fox Bindery, specialising in commissioned and design bindings, box- and label-making. She became a Licentiate of Designer Bookbinders in 2010 and has won several awards in three Designer Bookbinders National Competitions, culminating with winning 'the Silver triple' with first prize for set book, open choice book and the Edgar Mansfield Medal for best book.
Decoration with Leather
Tutor: Paolo Taddeo
Dates: 19-20 January 2013
Times: 10.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: Oxford House, Derbyshire Street, London, E2 6HG
Fee: GBP135.00 (plus GBP25.00 materials
payable on the day)
During this workshop we will be focusing on some of the most known and used bookbinding decoration techniques. We will learn and practice the use of the right tools and how to transfer each technique onto the leather. The workshop will be a combination of short demonstrations and hands on experimenting and practising. The techniques we will be exploring: cold gilding, feather leather mosaics, raised leather application, raised and recessed relief, decorating with acrylic colours, leather manipulation, onlayed leather strips, colour foil tooling and many more.
The techniques will be practised on small boards prepared during the course.
Suitable for binders with good leather paring skills.
Materials will cost £25.
This workshop is intended to complement Nicky Oliver’s workshop.
Paolo Taddeo started bookbinding and letter press in Italy in 1995, working for 5 years as part-time bookbinder and typographer. Between 2000 and 2007 Paolo worked as a digital designer for both print and web industry, mainly in the production of books and magazines as a natural continuation of what he learned in the bindery. After this he decided to move to London to work as bookbinder while studying at the London College of Printing. He worked at Rook’s Books and the Wyvern Bindery before setting up in 2009 his own studio Festinalente Books. He now runs his studio in North London as bookbinder and finisher as well as dealing with leather restoration and leatherwork projects.
Paolo was among the prizewinners in the 2010 and 2011 Designer Bookbinders Competitions. He is an SoB and DB member and Editor of the Designer Bookbinders Newsletter.
Paper Repair & Restoration
Tutor: Karen Vidler
Dates: 23-24 February 2013
Due to high demand, this workshop will be repeated on 25-26 May.
Times: 10.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: Northampton Central Library
Fee: GBP135.00 (plus GBP20.00 materials
payable on the day)
This 2-day workshop will focus on paper restoration skills,
undertaking simple paper treatment
and repairs relevant to Book Restoration. The workshop is
suitable for those seeking basic skills
for doing in situ and
disbound text block cleaning and repairs
to text pages and plates found in cloth
and leather bound books.
Techniques will include:
As a book & paper conservator, Karen will use only conservation standard techniques and materials throughout the workshop. Samples and handouts will be provided for each participant as well as a list of suppliers.
Karen Vidler has managed Book Conservation Services (formerly Karen Vidler Book Conservation) since 2006 and is also the Senior Book and Paper Conservator at the studio. She undertakes book and paper conservation to books held in libraries and archives as well as supervising internships and running workshops. Karen completed a Diploma in Fine Bookbinding and Paper Conservation at Guildford College in 2001. She worked as a Book Conservator in the Conservation Bindery of The National Archives, Kew, then returned to study to complete a Post-graduate Diploma in Book Conservation at West Dean College. In 2003 she was employed as a Book and Paper Conservator with the Book Conservation Studio of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
Cutting Corners
Tutors: Alan Fitch & Alan Wood
Dates: 23-24 March 2013
Times: 10.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: Farthing Press, Llanymynech, Powys SY22 6QJ
Fee:
GBP135.00 (plus GBP25.00 materials payable on the day)
Like them or loath them, corners are part and parcel of the life of a bookbinder. As with a lot of operations in bookbinding, practice makes perfect. But what about trying a different type of corner, a Pleated Tongue, a Universal, a Vellum Tipped?
Over the period of the workshop you will be shown, and have the opportunity to attempt, eight different types of corner, as well as discussing their merits and uses.
All corners will be in leather or vellum, so a paring knife and the ability to be able to use it would be a distinct advantage. Along with the three already mentioned we will also try: a Side Tongue corner, a Pleated Round corner, an Overlapping Pared corner, a Butt Mitre corner and a Vellum Boxed Corner.
Alan Fitch served a 6-year Letterpress Printing Apprenticeship at Portsmouth & Southampton Colleges of Art. In 1977 he started The Farthing Press and Bindery. In the early eighties he attended Norwich City College and gained a diploma in Bookbinding and Archive Repair. He now lives near Welshpool, from where he runs a variety of Bookbinding courses in a converted barn. He is also at present Managing Editor of Society of Bookbinders journal ‘Bookbinder’.
Alan Wood served a 6-year Bookbinding apprenticeship in London, studying under such binders as Edgar Mansfield, Ivor Robinson, Fred Austin and George Frewin. After spending several years in the trade and lecturing at London College of Printing, he moved to Southampton to establish a bindery at the University. In 1990 he moved to Gregynog as the resident binder. He remained there until his retirement in 2005, having completed 50 years in the trade.
Part-leather Library Style
Tutor: Laura West
Dates: 20-21 April 2013
Times: 10.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: j Hewit & Sons, Livingstone,
nr. Edinburgh EH54 5DL
Fee: GBP135.00 (plus GBP15.00 materials
payable on the day)
The Library Style structure is perfect for books which are to be used regularly. This would be for journals, dictionaries, reference books, collections of periodicals or favourite books such as cookery books. Library style bindings can be covered with book cloth alone or bound in the quarter- or half-bound style of leather with decorative paper or cloth.
There are about 40 steps in the process of this binding style! Laura will demonstrate the various steps and guide students as they work towards a finished book. Since these two days are all the time that is available for this forty step process, students are encouraged to arrive with enough folded and pressed sections for a text block of about 30 to 40mm thickness.
Over these two intensive days, Laura promises to share many of the tricks she has learned about this style of binding over the past fourteen years. She will also have spare tools and supplies on the day, so you don't have to bring your entire kit.
Laura West is a classically trained and award-winning bookbinder specialising in both traditional and contemporary hand-sewn books. She has a first class honours degree (BA) in bookbinding from Roehampton Institute where she was taught by Jen Lindsay. She is also a Queen Elizabeth Scholar (2000) and Balvenie Artisan of the Year (2005). Since 1999 Laura has been running her bindery on the Isle of Skye, where she works to archival standard.
Laura's signature range of “unique artefact books” draws on her studies and interest in historical book structure from all cultures. She says, “I want to take the form and structure of the book and continue its evolution in the digital era – to inspire journalists, observers, artists and bloggers – the new generation of book lovers”.
Registration Form
Click on the icon below to view / download a PDF version of the Joint Workshops Registration Form that you can print out and fill in.
