Never mind God - do I exist? I don't mean that feeling – familiar enough to some of us – that you have somehow become invisible to those around you, nor am I suggesting that I might be a figment of your imagination (a kind of reverse solipsism) – rather I am concerned with the … Continue reading The (limited) meaning of existence

Ream cutters, as their name suggests, are intended for cutting reams (500 sheets) of paper at a time. A powered electric guillotine will do the job but cost you thousands of pounds. The cheaper end of the manual cutters starts upwards of £500. It was not a cost I could see being absorbed into my … Continue reading Ch.19 – Gargantua the Chinese guillotine

One thing I will certainly do if - indeed, when - I repeat this exercise, is to keep better records. I did set out with the notion of doing a real-time blog, but in the event the large and varied amount of rapid learning I had to do in planning and making the books was … Continue reading Ch. 17 – The Friday the car blew up

I mentioned yesterday that the prospect of doing something repeatedly - in my case, a hundred times - shifts your perspective: you ask not only if you can do it, but also if you need to. My brief course at Robert Smail's had produced a pair of blank notebooks that were pleasing to the eye … Continue reading Ch. 16 – Rounding or backing? – mulling it over

My estimable friend Jackie Morris, artist and illustrator, writer of books, friend of bears, has some questions she would like us to answer (you can find more details here - http://www.jackiemorris.co.uk/blog/a-survey/ - including the prospect of prizes if you so incline). Here are the questions: If you could see through someone else’s eyes who would that … Continue reading Eight questions

As soon as you know that you are making a hundred of anything, you look at it in a different way - that question you ask at any point is not simply 'could I do this again (or indeed would I want to)?' but rather 'could I do this again a hundred times? would I … Continue reading Ch. 15: Economy of effort and material

The primary requirement for making a large number of books, aside from the necessary hardware and materials, is ample space. In particular, you need a table large enough to collate quantities of signatures - in my case ten books at a time, each of nine signatures apiece. You also need space to stack printed-off signatures … Continue reading Ch. 14 – The first day of volume production

I cannot now find the first book I ever made, but I recall that in the publication data I said something like 'printed and published, with labour and great pain, using Microsoft Publisher'. Part of the pain was certainly Publisher, which I recall as a quirky beast that took some time to master, but far … Continue reading Ch.13 : The time it takes – printing multiple copies