As part of the class “Writing and Designing the Visual Book”, we participated in a bookbinding workshop on Monday. Expert book binder, Barbara Mauriello (above) led the class. Her approach to bookbinding is less mathematical, teaching us how to listen to the materials and how they tell you what to do.

In the class we folded and stitched three different books. We first started of with a classical bookbinding. Therefore we created a book with 16 pages that we sew together with the simple eight formed stitch. The second book was a do-si-do binding. This was more challenging because it is readable from both sides and the stitch is more complex. Lastly, a french door.

It was an interesting experience and some of us had troubles working with their hands all of a sudden. But in the end everbody had three nice books.