Top Tips for Dissertation Binding
Attention Students!
Since re-opening after New Year we seem to have a rush on thesis binding - you students must've been working hard over the holiday season!
When I was writing my dissertation I lost count of how many chocolate digestives I ate whilst procrastinating! Although we can't help you write your essay, we can certainly get it ready for submission for you! Here are a few top tips to make the process a little easier.
- First, and most importantly, please leave us enough time for binding
Binding books is not an instant process. First we print it (if you need us to), thread sew it and then we glue it up and trim the edges. After that we make a hard cover to fit, letter it with your name and title of your thesis before finally putting the book block into it's case and pressing it. Even after all that, someone checks it to make sure it is up to our high standards before it is ready for collection.
This whole process means that your book could be worked on by several different people with the majority of this work being done by hand. We can offer services from a 3 day turnaround up to a 2 hour service but please note you will be charged a higher rate the shorter the turnaround!
- Save your document in PDF format.
Check your whole document! We don't read your thesis - mostly we don't even understand your title - so please check it for spelling errors, get it proof read, look for images or tables which don't fit on the page and remember we will charge you our colour printing rate for every page which contains a coloured heading or a blue hyperlink.
Once you are happy with your document save it as a PDF. If you don't know how to, we can tell you here. We need it like this to guarantee the layout and pagination of your document looks exactly the same on our computer screen as it does on yours.
Watch this video to see how we bind your thesis!
- Come and see us!
We are open from 7:30am until 5:00pm Monday to Thursday and from 7:30am until 2:30pm on Fridays. During these opening hours I guarantee someone will be there to talk to you. If the door is shut when you arrive please just turn the handle and come in and see us - I know this sounds stupid but we have had a couple of Ph.D. students who can manage to write hundreds of pages on subjects I could never hope to understand but who seem unable to comprehend the door handle!
- We've got your spec covered
We understand that you are trusting us with many years of hard work but from this point on you can leave the rest to us! We bind dissertations every single day so we know what we're doing! We have your University Specification and will bind your dissertation ready for submission. If you are at a Glasgow based university we can even deliver it to your tutor for you! Don't panic, we got this!
- Or just do the whole thing online!
You can of course make things even easier for yourself by uploading your thesis to us online! The form will take you through all the relevant details and payment process. You can then either come and collect it in person or we can courier it to you or your University.
Check our our thesis pages for more info, prices and our online upload form.
Back in the Bindery!
Old Meets New in our New Year
This book has been re-backed in leather with the old spine remounted. The top panel had been lost so we tooled it to match.
Happy New Year everyone! We were hard at it up until Christmas, and January certainly isn't breaking us in gently after the festive season!
After a couple of days to catch up with, and finish off a couple of smaller jobs we spent yesterday cleaning the workshop from top to bottom. Decluttering and tidying in preparation for an exciting year!
Having already been awarded a prestigious tender from a huge library in London towards the end of last year, we are preparing to apply for another! These large contracts are really important for us, not only to keep us all in a job, but for to prove how great our little bindery is! We are a small operation, but we take pride in taking the same care over each book in a big order as we do with those brought to us by individual customers who come to our door every day. The quality of every single book has to reach our high standards!
Our next tender application relies on us expanding our more specialised repair and conservation skills. As more and more binding of new books is being done on such a massive scale, mainly by machines, bookbinding by hand is becoming a dying art - especially book repair. Every book brought to us for restoration is different which makes our job more difficult, but also much more interesting!
We find a lot of people want us to rebind their favourite books, books they want to hand down to their children and some that have been passed down to them. Some folk find old books in charity shops and second hand bookshops and take a shine to them, love the smell of them. They are treasured for the pencil notes in the margins, inscriptions on the front page and beautiful illustrations - both the ones printed in the book and the ones your 3 year old scribbled when you left it out near the colouring pens. Books can hold incredible sentimental value for their owners, something a modern e-book could never manage.
If you have a book you'd like restored, just bring it in - we are always happy to chat about books! You could even have a go at fixing it yourself - under our expert supervision of course - on one of our Book Repair Classes.
We wish you a Merry Christmas!
Book Inspired DIY Christmas Decorations
Etsy - MaisyandAlice
We have been so so busy over the last few weeks it has felt like Christmas spirit has passed us by - but I can assure you we are feeling it now! Just a couple of big orders to finish and a few Christmas gifts waiting to be picked up by some of our lucky customers and we will be ready for our well deserved Christmas break!
So I thought I'd wish you all a great holiday with a few book inspired Christmas decorations to have a go making at home - a home made Christmas is one of the things I love best!
Gorgeous Garlands
This gorgeous garland caught my attention. It's a little different from the brightly coloured paper chains I used to make as a child but it is beautiful and the text definitely brings a much cosier quality to this string of hearts.
kaylaaimee.com
Literary Christmas trees
A wonderfully simple but effective idea! You can find a number of amazing examples of Christmas book art but these I reckon are definitely ones most folk could have a successful go at. They'd make quirky gifts or lovely centrepiece for your Christmas table!
You can find the tutorial to make these dinky book trees here.
Advent Stars
In my search for handmade Christmas decorations it is difficult to avoid the abundance of traditional Scandinavian ornaments. I thought I'd have a go at making a Swedish advent star using this tutorial. Usually made of straw, this version works brilliantly with pages from a discarded novel.
A little bit fiddly at first but surprisingly easy to make and understatedly pretty! It is perhaps a little to tasteful too sit alongside my neon pink tinsel but I am a huge fan of mix and match and at Christmas anything goes!
I do hope everyone has a wonderful time over the festive period - eat, drink and be merry!
We look forward to seeing you in the new year!
A Bookbinders Favourite Tool
John - our Master Bookbinder
Our Unique Bone Folders
With a range of bookbinding tools now on offer to purchase from our online shop I thought it'd be timely to give you a little insight into our favourite one!
A bone folder is, unsurprisingly, traditionally made of bone, although these days you can find them produced in a few other materials. including brass and teflon.
It's purpose is primarily for paper folding, card making and origami but it has other uses. We use it for covering boxes and poking the cloth into all the nooks and crannies. It is also perfect for adding a little extra glue to a job, rubbing down paper to make sure it sticks and on the odd occasion I have seen it used for stirring coffee in our workshop!
You can see our small range of bone folders now in our online shop - all of ours started off life just like one of those. One of the reasons we are all so attached to our own particular folder is that they adapt and change as you use them. The way you rub every single spine when lining often creates a dip in one side. Sometimes we sharpen the end a little to get into a small space and unfortunately sometimes they break and so we shorten them and reshape them to continue their life. And needless to say we are in a complete panic when we misplace our folder!!
Mia - a beautiful array of shapes and sizes!
David - a name tag so no-one pinches it!
Kerry - relatively new clean ones!
Mine - one of these is teflon - non stick!
Gillian & Robin - Robin's sadly broke today!
Erin - a particularly pointed one for box making!
Check out our ever expanding online shop to see our current range of tools and materials. We don't sell anything that we don't use on a daily basis here in our workshop so it is all to true production bookbinding standard - and why not pick yourself up your own bone folder? It really is a bookbinders favourite tool!
Fore Edge Painting
Martin Frost
A Hidden Art
This weekend a few of our number attended a workshop run in association with the Society of Bookbinders to learn the art of fore edge painting with artist and bookbinder, Martin Frost.
The earliest fore edge paintings are thought to date back to the 10th century and were usually symbolic in nature. From around 1650 the disappearing fore edge painting was invented, in this type you cannot see the painting when the book is closed - only when the pages are fanned out. This is the style of painting the girls had a go at on Saturday.
The edges of the book must first be gilded, traditionally in gold but nowadays foil comes in many different colours. A clamp is used to hold the book with the fanned edges of the pages exposed. The bookbinder then paints, using a very dry colour, onto the exposed fore edge - landscapes, patterns, portraits or whatever is in their imagination! Once the painting is dry the pages can then be realeased to hide the artwork.
Gillian Stewart
Mia Heath
It is a long and precise process but aren't the results amazing!
Has anyone else tried this amazing hidden art? If so we'd love to see your photos! Perhaps, we'll practice in the workshop a little more and you can come and have a go with us!
You can find more information on the work and classes by Martin Frost on his website