Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Add Style To Your Tape Bound Books -An Inside Peek

These handmade books are all in a sewn onto tapes style. You can see that a sewn onto tapes book is a typical hardbound book which can have a rounded spine or a straight hardback spine. The tape is a long strip of material that is sewn across the spine of a text block. The material, which is typically linen tape, is then glued to the cover of the book before the endpapers are placed on. Traditionally, these tapes can either be seen on the inside of the book, or more often, are hidden with built up paper on the inside cover so you can not see the tapes on the inside of the cover. Instead of hiding the tapes, I created designs in the front covers of these books below. I also didn't use traditional linen tape, I used linen book cloth because I can cut it to various widths and the book cloth I used was a bit thicker which allowed for the design to really stand out.




7 comments:

J Rock said...

Aside from the designs, are there any other advantages to using book tape?

Karleigh Jae said...

The best advantage with this style of book is that the pages will open flat and it has a closed spine. Closed spine books tend to be more durable and sturdy compared to other structures like the coptic book. And the book with pages that are able to open flat is a must for any artist or writer :)

Rob Ross said...

That's a cool method, I'm going to try it out. So you would essentally sew the cloth onto the signatures when you're sewing them together, right?

Karleigh Jae said...

Rob, I'll take a photo next time I sew a tapes bound book to give you an idea on how it's created.

Monica Holtsclaw said...

Neat idea, Karleigh Jae! Thanks for sharing :)

jenedypaige said...

Where did you get that super thick tape? That looks so neat! I want to try it!

Karleigh Jae said...

Jenedypaige, I used linen book cloth. You can cut it to whatever size you need and it was backed with cloth so it was thicker than the typical linen tape and allowed the design to stand out more.