Vintage Life

Binding - Unique

I was inspired by the many articles in the Vintage Life folios showing the variety of “curio cabinets” of collections. I decided to do a binding that conveyed the book as a “Curio Cabinet”. The text block of the Vintage Life folios was sewn like any conventional book and with traditional end papers added. The cover design is somewhat unconventional. Historically books often had wooden covers so I explored various possibilities using wooden covers. The binding I developed consists of front and back covers of maple wood constructed as open curio cabinets that display an array of individual objects selected to convey the diversity of collections in article in the folios. The spine has the title which consists of hand cut wooden letters designed from wooden vintage letter press type letters. The end papers inside the covers are marbled papers. The front and back covers are closed with an antique metal clasp on the head of the book.

I was one of 14 invited book binders to create a binding of the uncut issues of Vintage Life published by Uppercase Magazine (vintagelifebinding.wordpress.com).