Small Edition of Hand Bound Books

Short Run Of Books Printed and Bound in Portland, Oregon

We love working with clients to build fine, custom hand-bound books. We specialize in exposed spine stitching, and can add debossing, screenprinting, and letterpress artwork to book covers. (Please contact us for further details if you have a project. See our FAQ page for general pricing and turnaround time.)

The project below was for the 100th anniversary of the local electrician's union. They asked us to build 20 books that included the history of their organization. We used black thread in a long stitch style to bind the pages, which were printed by local shop Bridgetown Printing. Within a recess on the cover is a plaque letterpress printed by KeeganMeegan & Co.

See Other Binding Styles • View Other Custom Work • See Logos on Book Covers

Kids Bookbinding Class

Moms and Daughters Make Journals

We had the pleasure of hosting a class for a wonderful group of eight-year-old girls and their moms last weekend at HSS. The girls started by folding pages for their books, then picked out papers to decorate the covers. Once the decoration was done, they punched holes then sewed signatures (groups of folded pages) into the covers. With their finished journals, the moms and daughters will be able to write notes, thoughts, ideas, and secrets back and forth. We're so proud of how well the girls did, and loved watching them connect with their moms as they learned something new.

Thanks for joining us, ladies!

Sunday Best Sale

Come see us THIS Friday night and Saturday day at the 6th annual Sunday Best Holiday Sale! We've been working up a selection of new and exciting journals to sell just for this occasion.

Bookbinding Class

Learning to make books at HSS

Yesterday we had the pleasure of teaching bookbinding to a wonderful group from Wieden+Kennedy (graciously hosted by Yahoo). We made a sewn text block that attached to the decorative cover via ribbons sewn onto the spine. Here are some of the steps we went through to make the books:

Class members prepare materials.

Paper is folded into signatures (six signatures of four sheets each.)

Holes are poked with an awl into each signature where the thread will be sewn through.

Class members sew signatures with waxed linen thread.

A lovely example of the finished text block:

A decorative cover is scored and sliced to create the slots for the ribbons to go through:

Ribbons are then pulled through the book spine, and tied into knots or bows to hold the book together.

The class, with Michelle and assistant Kortni show off their finished books!

Have ideas for bookbinding classes you'd like us to teach? Let us know on our Facebook page or send us a message on Twitter.