20 Bookbinding resources online

Bookbinding is great fun, creative, a useful craft skill and hand bound notebooks make great gifts, or can be used as visual journals. Recently I have been exploring the book binding sites and discovered a few good tutorials online.

1. Dave’s Book Tutorial is an excellent step by step tutorial with each stage fully described and illustrated with photographs.
2. Brian Sawyer also has an excellent tutorial on bookbinding.
3. Book binding 101 is a good introductory article that introduces some ideas and the basics of binding
4. This is a great photo essay on making a case bound book which starts off with good advice on finding the grain of paper.
5. Hugh Sparks maintains a comprehensive site on binding books
6. How to Make a Simple Hardcover Book is a very brief tutorial illustrated with line drawings
7. Board books are ideal for young children and this is a great idea to create one off individual stories for a special child.
8. This tutorial on flickr show you how to make a book from one sheet of paper
9. Art, Books, and Creativity houses tutorials on a variety of book formats including accordion, flagbook, tunnel books, and pop-ups.
10. This article on the Book binding for Beginners site gives you instructions on how to build a book sewing frame
11. There are even instructions on how to Make a Standing Press
12. There are number of books on book binding online and a list of them is housed here
13. A copy of The Art of Bookbinding by Joseph W. Zaehnsdorf was published in London in 1897 is online
14. A copy of Bookbinding and the Care of Books by Douglas Cockerell published in New York in 1902 is available online
15. For inspiration visit The Book Arts Web and make a cuppa as you will need it to follow all their links
16. Don’t forget the Bonefolder, is an “open-access” e-journal which is an outgrowth of the Book Arts Web. Every issue is full of articles on a range topics that relate to the book arts. You will find topics such as hand bookbinding, the history of the book, the book as art, instructional tutorials, and tips & tricks make it a must read.
17. For more inspiration take a look at the 100th Anniversary Exhibition of the Guild of Bookworkers
18. Hand Bookbindings: Plain and Simple to Grand and Glorious is a collection of books from the twelfth century to the twentieth in the Special Collections in the Princeton University Library
19. My Handbound Books is the blog of a bookbinder which covers artists books, book structures and many aspects of the book arts.
20. Cailun info is a the blog of a paper and books arts practitioner.