Meet the designers behind the Booker Prize 2024's bespoke bound books

One of the highlights of the annual Booker Prize season comes when each of the shortlisted authors is presented with a unique, hand-bound edition of their nominated works, created by Fellows from the Designer Bookbinders society. These extraordinary, one-of-a-kind books are designed and made between the shortlist announcement and winner ceremony. Each book is the result of around 150 hours of dedicated work and the process, which involves at least 25 distinct stages, including the decoration of the edges of the pages and the final lettering, would normally take up to four months. This year it took around two.

Below, we meet the designers behind this year’s creations and ask them how they began bookbinding, and how they made this year’s stunning books, which will be presented to the shortlisted authors at the winner ceremony on November 12, 2024.

What do you enjoy most about being a bookbinder, and how would you describe your work and style? Has it evolved over time? 

One of the many reasons I fell in love with bookbinding is that there is always something new to learn. It’s a craft that possesses a vat of skills, techniques, materials, history and structures with which you can submerge yourself. My work is often colourful, which is influenced by the written word, emotion and art. My work varies depending on the voice within the book I am binding. I feel like it is only natural to evolve – the more you learn and refine your craft – and it becomes apparent within your pieces.

What excites you most about being part of the Booker Prize shortlist bookbindings this year? How does the process differ from other bookbinding projects?

It is always an honour to bind one of the shortlisted books. This will be my fourth year and it feels as electric, terrifying and exciting as the first time I was part of it. Each binder has a small window in which to read the book, design it and then execute it – one can’t linger or explore an idea. You have to harvest as much as you can from the text and run with it. No room for error. It’s all-consuming in the best possible way. 

How did the theme or tone of Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner influence your design choices? What techniques did you apply to your final design?

We don’t get to choose our books but I always read the synopses of the longlisted books as soon as they’re released. I selected six that I like the sound of and Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake was one I had underlined and highlighted. I was thrilled when it arrived.

Due to the time frame we have, when I read the book I sketch down words, sentences and themes which create very clear pictures in my mind – almost movie-like imagery. The strongest image becomes the foundation on which the rest is built – in this case it was Neanderthal art. I wanted my design to be reminiscent of a Neanderthal cave which included the other chosen elements; poplar trees, magnesium crystals, water and corn, colours of anarchy (black and red), the big and little dippers with Polaris. I also included the French flag colours within the hand-sewn endband. The leather and the paper doublures within have been dyed with leather dyes via a dip pen, mini atomisers and foam.

What do you enjoy most about being a bookbinder, and how would you describe your work and style? Has it evolved over time?

The art of making the book is something I cherish. Perhaps a simple definition of the book is; a portable written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers. The book, in one form or another, has been part of our existence for thousands of years. Historical, regional and cultural variations, along with the history and use of mark-making, in addition to the diversity of materials used in the production of books, reflect the progress of humankind. As a bookbinder/book artist I make, work and live with books, my full-time work is my passion. The allure of the traditionally made book is magical, once in the hand, the tactile qualities of the book are transmitted creating a sense of object-form. The function of opening the cover, and turning the page becomes an extension of the process of the book. We are close to the page, we see and feel the type, the illustrations and the paper. 

I feel that I do not have a particular style of working, I work with a rich and diverse array of materials and techniques that I combine, much as a canvas artist mixes their colour range on their palette, to produce the finished book. My work constantly evolves with each book or book project I work on.

What excites you most about being part of the Booker Prize shortlist bookbindings this year? How does the process differ from other bookbinding projects?

Normally it can take months to make one design binding. My approach is to live with the book, to read, research and muse over it. I tend to work things out in my sketchbook and am often to be found scribbling away. From those squiggles a design begins to take shape, sometimes instinctive, sometimes deliberate or a combination of both. It has to be remembered that in addition to the aesthetic of the book, form and function have to be considered in the designing stage. From the pages of the sketchbook I move to the workbench, a maquette or a series of maquettes are made to explore material use, the function of the numerous elements of the construction and application of various decorative techniques to achieve the desired aesthetic. It is only then that I start work on the design binding.

Because the timeline for the Booker Prize is condensed, what would normally take weeks has to take days. I am more instinctive in approach, dipping into my palette of techniques and methods. I still live with the book, reading and re-reading, constantly taking inspiration from the text, interpreting what I feel are key moments or the threads that weave their way through the author’s words.

How did the theme or tone of Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood influence your design choices? What techniques did you apply to your final design?

To be honest, Stone Yard Devotional was something of a struggle for me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the reading, elements re-kindling distant memories of school, friendships and the oddities of family, how things turn out to be the way they are. I had the design sorted out, an idea of the materials I wanted to use, but I struggled with linking elements together. It was on the second reading that I began to find my way: the answer was threads. There is, for me at least, a series of key events, one taking place in a school sewing class. 

My father was a Master Cutter and Tailor, and I learnt to sew on his lap. I could use the old treadle Singer Sewing Machine tucked away in the corner of his workroom before I could ride a bike. It was in those memories that I was able to link key elements of my design. Basically, I had to learn to sew badly, to render mice, plastic flowers, chicken beaks and the odd crucifix in a child-like, perhaps one could say clumsy machine stitch. Incorrect tension, the sewing machine running away from me, incomplete and layered sewing in a variety of stitch patterns that lend colour along with a tactile quality to the finished book. Other materials and techniques employed are hand-dyed leather, Flottage Papers with my own images of threads and spools printed on them for the endpapers and doublers. Hand-sewn end bands, edge decoration along with recessed panels of book cloth complete the design.

How do you see the craft of bookbinding evolving? Are there any contemporary trends or innovations in the field that inspire or challenge you?

From the materials used to make books along with the various methods of mark making, the book has been in a constant state of evolving. I feel that there is a growing interest in the total book, from the printing to the making with Artists’ Books, private or small presses producing high quality, unique and limited edition books that echo back to the Arts and Crafts movement ethos. By combining traditional and contemporary methods of printing and bookbinding, the work being produced now offers the reader and bibliophile an ever-expanding variety of books and book art. The book is what we make of it, and how we interact with the book depends on how we choose to define what the book is, or could be. 

What do you enjoy most about being a bookbinder, and how would you describe your work and style? Has it evolved over time? 

I think for me the variety is one of the best parts of the job. No day is the same. I have a very short attention span so I really enjoy doing something different on each job. However, I realise this is not the best business model, having to start from scratch every time. But there is such a thrill to starting a new commission, reading the book (though more often than not listening to it nowadays), doing in-depth research into a subject I may have previously known nothing about. And then trying to come up with a response that adds a further layer to the author’s/illustrator’s/typesetter’s/printer’s work without clashing or overriding it. Over the years I’ve spent time with subjects as diverse as the beat poets, psychedelic explorers, mass incarceration, high gothic horror, lynching and now the experience of the enslaved. I try to create an atmosphere rather than illustrate a passage from the book and I would say my style has become more layered, more textural, less obvious – hopefully. 

What excites you most about being part of the Booker Prize shortlist bookbindings this year? How does the process differ from other bookbinding projects?

The Booker Prize commission is a turnaround of approximately six weeks whereas for most of my other commissions, I say that it will be about a year before the client sees it again. Not because each book takes that long! However, because I am running several projects alongside each other in between teaching and other commitments. So the Booker is an intense, roller coaster ride of a job. The deadline is absolute and constantly looming. But I think this full immersion into the world of the book can bring about a better binding, though rather more shredded nerves. I also can’t deny that it is definitely the most glamorous fixture in the annual bookbinding calendar. We bookbinders tend to be a solitary bunch so having to get your gladrags on and hobnob with the great and the good is all a bit too exciting. And also working on something so high profile definitely adds cachet. Not many people have heard of designer bookbinding but nearly everyone has heard of the Booker Prize. 

How did the theme or tone of James by Percival Everett influence your design choices? What techniques did you apply to your final design?

My main takeaway from reading James was one of anger. There is so much visceral imagery, whether descriptions of whipping, rape or the sheer brutality of humanity, and my initial thought was to plaster this all over the cover. But this felt disrespectful so I chose to concentrate on the author’s use of language, picking out all the words which I identified as describing the struggle of the enslaved, but underwriting it with the words ‘hope’ and ‘freedom’, both of which James is constantly aspiring to. I also chose the typeface for the name James within the book and on the outside of the box from an advert for slaves for sale of the time. On the inside of the book it is written in the sloping italic script of the enslaved, on the outside of the box it is an upright script used for the names of freemen. Also, the Mississippi River features heavily throughout so I chose a map of the meanders where the Mississippi meets the Ohio River at Cairo to which James is constantly striving as it is where freedom lies. He hopes. 

How do you see the craft of bookbinding evolving? Are there any contemporary trends or innovations in the field that inspire or challenge you?

Despite there currently being precious little education in bookbinding in the UK, I am very hopeful for the future of bookbinding. The young people I teach at Bath Spa University and West Dean College are all immensely excited by the potential of the book as a vehicle for their arts practice. And there is a huge amount of interest in the handmade book on all the social media platforms. I have exhibited several times at Codex Book Fair in San Francisco, that crucible of human innovation. There is adulation of the book as an art object and publishers from both sides of the Atlantic are investing huge amounts into limited editions of the highest quality – handmade paper, letterpress printing, fine art printmaking and hand binding. I think all of this renewed interest in the book as a physical object, along with all things analogue – vinyl, typewriters, the handmade – is in response to the anonymity and ethereal nature of the digital age and global consumerism. Like William Morris’s Arts and Crafts movement was a protest at the Industrial Revolution and the poor quality of machine-made goods, so we are now in a new protest against the Digital Revolution. As human beings, we want a connection with the person who has made the item we are holding or we want to relearn the hand skills that we are in danger of losing. It feels that fine bookbinding is future-proof. Making with your hands is something that AI cannot achieve. Long may it continue.