Designer Bookbinding

This year I have decided to make two Designer Books. What are "Designer Books"? It is a binding where I am able to design a book as a whole. I use my creativity as well as my bookbinding skills to make books for not one, but two exhibitions.

One book is for the International Designer Bookbinders' competition which will be hosted in Oxford, June 2009. The other is for Nordiska Bokband and is hosted by the Islandic bookbinder's guild The latter exhibition is going to open in Reykjavik and later travel to all of the Nordic countries.

It has been a while since I had books exhibited in such settings. I have sent books to Italy, Estonia, Great Britain, and I had a book touring last time Nordiska Bokband had a competition in 2005/6.

I love to work with the set book that are often provided, and get ideas of how to bind it and with what materials. I love to use leather, metal, wood, and transfer techniques.

I have attached a few designer books I have made in this post. The top one is 'Frost' by the Norwegian author Roy Jacobsen. The bottom two are the back and front of 'St. Francis of Assisi', the set book in an Italian competition which were held in Assisi in 2001. In both books I feel like I have made something I created out of my vision and how I liked to look like. I love using materials from the nature, and the technique of Coptic binding.