Got my father-in-law to take pictures of all our materials for the webshop, www.bespokeeditions.com, at the weekend. Our papers made gorgeous models, and absolutely no temper tantrums or stage fright from them whatsover.
Can’t resist showing off this decorative paper we are adding to our launch selection. This is a design by artist and designer Eric Ravilious, 1903-42. (He is a personal favourite – see Simon Roberts’ We English post for more on Ravilious.) Read the rest of this entry »
Highlight of the week so far, apart from noticing how interest in this blog and whole project is slowly creeping up (hello! and thanking you very much), is doing a short email Q&A for a magazine. Despite being an editor for 15 years, I’m a wordy person, so I ended up giving long answers to all the questions. But as they are questions that a lot of people have been asking me recently, I thought it might be an idea to reproduce here.
What are the 3 steps to make a Bespoke Edition?
What inspired you to go into this business?
Have you made any books?
What is special about getting a Bespoke Edition?
What are the different options you can choose when you order a book?
Are there any competitors who are providing the same product?
Psst. Want to know a secret? We are thrilled to say hello to Ace Jet 170, and hello to a page design. Kate’s graphic-designer stalking has paid dividends, because he has agreed to work with us in creating beautifully typeset pages. I reckon the time has come to post the initial designs on the blog. Click on the images to see enlargement and an explanation. Read the rest of this entry »
Bit of a behind the scenes post today…but I didn’t want to go all silent on the blog just at the moment when we’re most intense. Who’d have guessed: building an online shop is no easier than building a bricks and mortar shop. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re very busy with building our website and working out how best to lay out all the gorgeous options of papers and leathers - so that you can have as much fun as we’re having putting books together. All the books are to be handmade as one-offs, using individual selection of materials. Picky people no problem: the most exciting part of setting up Bespoke Editions for us is making the books. Read the rest of this entry »
Sourcing some nice papers this week. I took a picture of my favourites: all hand printed Chiyogami papers. I think the patterns are about the right scale to work really well on quarter-bound demy-format hardbacks. We’ll see….
