Saturday 12 October 2013

Man Booker, We need New Names. Final stages.








Binding details.
A double board Bradel Binding with a double hollow. All leather hand dyed with the back board covered in a delaminated pizza box. Sewn silk end bands with full edge decoration. Hand printed end papers with a coat hanger and lino cut.

Design concept.
The novel  concentrates on the life of Darling, a young girl living in a shanty town, Darling and her friends create new worlds from the detritus around them. Witnessing the often violent struggle of survival in Zimbabwe, families destroyed by AIDS and corruption in all levels of society, she lives with the dream of escaping to another place. When her dream is realised, culminating in her arrival and life in North America, Darling realises that the dream is not all she had hoped for.

A African mask to the spine of the book is a stylised representation of a screaming mask that Darling and her friends find in the ransacked home of a white African. The front board with its draught board like squares, tears and arrow indicate the struggle of everyday living in Darling's life. The Pop Art inspired back board with its' pizza box is intended to show the conspicuous consumption and waste in her new life.


Saturday 5 October 2013

Man Booker, We Need New Names. Spine is finished.


After the work on the text block I began to work on the binding. I have chosen to use the Bradel format as it offers great variations and is very flexible in what one can do with it. The spine will be a Double Hollow construction with the boards being a laminate of two.


With the edging leather applied and dyed the double hollow is fashioned. Having read the book some 4 times I kept coming back to the description of a mask in a trashed house, "In the sitting room, we stand before the large mask on the wall and stare at the black face, the eyes gouged out. It is a long thin face.....the mouth is open like it is letting out a howl"




Leather paring for the front board.


Hand colouring the front board, first stage.

Friday 4 October 2013

Mann Booker, We Need New Names.







The text block has been rounded and backed and the first lining of Fraynot has been applied to the spine. The sewing multi coloured sewing to the spine is the secondary sewing that reinforces the attachment of the Fraynot to the text block. 

This done, the edge decoration and end banding followed.