OUGD504 - Making the Cover and Binding the Book

Making the cover and binding the Book:

My chosen method to bind the book was a hard back with a stab stitch. I chose this method as it meant that the book would be sustainable and hard wearing due to the nature of which the book may be used. It would also be more expensively made meaning that it would be representative of the status in which gin holds. 

I firstly had to decided on the colour of buckram which I wanted to use for the cover. I had discussed this with my client and we had decided that as the content of the book was very colourful we didn't want the cover to be an overwhelming colour which would clash with the colours used on the inside. We therefore were looking at either black or white as this would not take away any of the attention from the content on the inside. As this book could be used in a pub I decided that using the colour white could be a bad choice as it would easily get grubby and very quickly end up look tatted and messy. Black however would allow the book to be more sustainable as it wouldn't show the grubbiness as easily. I therefore decided that this was the best colour to work with for the cover of the book. 

Once I had got the materials I started to create the covers. I had to cut grey board down to the size which I needed for it to cover my inside pages and then use PVA glue to stick it to the buckram as seen in the image below. Once the grey board was stuck down I cut out the buckram around the grey board leaving about a 3cm boarder on every side. I then cut the corners off of the boarder which can also be seen in the image below. 

When the buckram was all cut down I was able to start gluing the boarder which I left to the other side of the grey board which makes sure that every edge and corner is covered in the buckram. To do this I coated each boarder with PVA glue as seen above and then folded it over to stick to the grey board as seen below. When it was stuck down I used a dog tooth to pinch in the corners making sure that it was tightly fitted to the whole of the grey board. 

When both covers were made I was able to start measuring where about I wanted to put the holes for the stab stitch. In order to do this I used an extra piece of grey board to measure it out and therefore make sure it was correct without having to mark my cover. Once it was all measured I used clips to attach the grey board to my covers with the inside pages neatly placed inside how I wanted them to be. I then drilled through the layers in the marked out places as shown below. 

The final stage to actually bind the book can be seen in the picture underneath. I used a needle and thread to stab stitch through the holes which I had drilled in order to bind the book into place. To round off I left some excess string which I tied together neatly and then trimmed the end of the string.