Last week, Jack and I went on a day trip to Zurich to visit the BuBu book factory after the Swiss book bindery set our course a competition brief in collaboration with BOB design. You can see more about that here ...
http://barbarafrankieryan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/100314.html. Bubu is short for Buchbinderiei Burkhardt, founded by the brilliant Hans Burkhardt who looked after us so well during our visit. The factory was literally a dream, it was the book equivalent of what Charlie and the Chocolate is to confectionery. There were so many machines and production techniques (my favourite being the machine that pinched spines in order to curve them), a combination of mechanical and hand processes, each used when appropriate or in comnination.
Jack and I received prototypes of our winning designs (one of which BuBu will use as their 2015 new book, after further prototyping) which were made by the irin-house hand binding team. They did a stonking job. Mine being a sharing book that is torn in half in order to be used and Jack's is a pocket book (designed to curve perfectly to his bum) which aims to make books more informal again. Here are the prototypes ...
Then Jack and I had a go at some handarbeit and made ourselves some books, of course with a lot of assistance! I opted for lemon with my initials foiled in white and Jack went for a more classy black and gold foil combo. It was great to learn so much about books and I hope to make a lot more books in the future!
