I set metal and polymer type on two restored platen presses, and sew and case books by hand. Most of what leaves the studio is an edition of fewer than two hundred — chapbooks, stationery, and repairs to books that have been read far too many times to throw away.
A sixty-page chapbook of correspondence, set in 11pt Caslon and printed damp on mould-made paper. Sewn on tapes, quarter-bound in linen.
Letterhead, cards and folded notes for a small surveying practice. Two inks, blind deboss on the reverse, trimmed slightly oversize.
An 1890s atlas with a broken spine and loose plates. Guarded, resewn, and recased in goatskin with the original label lifted and laid back down.
The studio is two rooms at the back of a former dairy: one for the presses and the type cabinets, one for sewing, paring and pressing. It is not a quiet trade — a platen press makes a sound somewhere between a sigh and a door closing — but it is a patient one.
I came to it sideways, after eleven years of editing other people's books and growing steadily more curious about how they were actually made. I took a bookbinding evening class, then a summer apprenticeship, and never really went back.
I take on a limited number of commissions each season so that nothing is rushed. If the calendar is full I will say so plainly rather than quietly let a deadline slip.
Chapbooks, broadsides, invitations and cards. Polymer plates made in-house from your files, or set by hand where the text is short enough to justify it.
Pamphlet, sewn-board, case and limp-vellum bindings. Boxes and slipcases made to measure for things that need protecting.
Sympathetic repair of books in daily use: hinges, spines, loose sections. I will always tell you when a book is better left as it is.
Estimates are given per project after seeing the text and a paper sample. Short runs under fifty copies are usually quoted as a flat fee rather than per unit.
Write with a rough description, an approximate quantity and the date you are hoping for. Photographs are plenty for a repair enquiry — the spine and the hinges, if you can.