Bookbinding Techniques and Art

Mainly I want to share a few truly spectacular art book examples that I came upon while looking for inspiration, but first I wanted to share a youtube channel, because I’ve found it really helpful:                                                 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2F704E01F80BA1E9

It’s a series of videos by Sea Lemon (not her real name I presume, but who knows?) on several different types of bookbinding techniques and styles. I’ve been looking for a technique conducive to seamless spreads, and she offers a couple.

Now, art books. Apparently it is possible to create an entire tiny world inside of a book without relying on words to tell the story. I found several examples of books that were sculpted both from the outside in using multiple connected books, and from the inside out using the pages of a single book as the medium.

For some reason wordpress won’t let me upload images, but the best examples I’ve found so far are on designswan.com. My personal favorites are #4, # 7 and #9:  http://www.designswan.com/archives/amazing-sculptural-book-art.html

Also, it appears there is, or at least was at one point, a book binding competition put on by Philobiblon. The site for the competition has some great examples of alternative forms of book structure. They can be found by following this link:  http://www.philobiblon.com/flagbook/guidelines.html