Monday, July 25, 2016

Land of Nakoda, 1942


I briefly mentioned onlay on my previous post, so I thought I might as well share a binding with butt-joints this time. Butt-joint, as you can imagine, is a method of which two or more pieces of cover materials are butt-jointed to form a multicolored/textured surface. It can be done in book cloth, fabric or leather as the binding shown on this post. This is such an excellent way to express your artistic creativity, as well as to recycle scrap that's too small to use for normal bindings. ;-) It's sort of like quilting, you see?

An important thing that you need to concern is the thickness of the materials. Each piece must be of the same thickness, or the surface won't be flat. And make sure to cut each piece precisely and butt-joint the edges seamlessly. - you don't want to see any gaps between the patterns!

This book is about Sioux Indians, and the client asked me to create a design that reflects their traditional hide paintings used for crafts such as parfleches. Well, their geometric patterns and graphics are perfect for a butt-joint binding, so I’ve decided to use the method along with onlays. - the red banners are onlayed and the zigzag background consists of butt-jointed kid and calf hides.

This is an autographed, first edition copy of Land of Nakoda, The Story of the Assiniboine Indians, by James L. Long and William Standing. (1942)

5 comments:

  1. This is just astoundingly cool. No ifs, ands, or....butts.

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  2. hahaha, Thanks Vince. Send me some pics of your next onlay binding, eh?

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  3. Absolutely beautiful! Your design work equals your technical skill, for sure. What's the typeface used on the spine? Goudy? I wouldn't have thought it would, but it suits the overall design perfectly and with class.

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    1. Thanks Todd. ;-) The font is called Cloister.

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