You And Me On A Sunny Day: A Silent Film by Rocky McCorkle
This book is pretty darn cool. I really, really like Rocky's photographs and the concept behind the book is rather engaging and wonderfully imaginative. A labor of love for several years, "You and Me on a Sunny Day" features a special black suede-like book cloth, gold foil stamping on the front and spine, and a dust jacket. Read and see more about this project on Rocky McCorkle's website.
Screen Printing Arrives!
It is with great happiness that we announce the debut of SCREEN PRINTING at Edition One Books! We've been working on this new feature for a bit now and it's really exciting. As far as this author knows, we're the only company in our niche industry to provide such a cool finishing option. If you got our e-mail, you know all about this already. But if you haven't, you probably want to consider signing up for our mailing list so you can be in the know before everyone else.
Screen printing will be available for both hard and soft cover books and in an array of eight colors (shown above) plus standard black and white. This affords so many possible combinations with our existing linen and art paper stocks (286 to be exact, but I was no math major). And because we have just the one sample so far, we're offering a HUGE discount of $90 to all screen printed orders from now until the end of May. So get cracking - we can't wait to see your designs!
Another week, another great project
Recently we shipped one of my favorite projects to date (and I've been at Edition One for over a year now). It was a multi-color foil stamped, screen-printed, beautifully designed book finished with an inset image and cased-in – all by hand.
We found a very local screen printer – G-Bbear Prints just a few blocks away from our facilities – to print on the top right corner of the book cases. A first for us, we're planning to add screen printing to our standard finishing options early next month.
Above you can see the cases (the hard covers before it is attached to the contents, or book block) foil-stamped with black, silver, and red and then pressed for the inset image, the final step in the finishing process. And as you can see below, it all came together quite nicely!
I'll be back next week with an official-ish announcement about screen printing and some more great projects. Enjoy your weekends and follow us on Facebook for more frequent updates and cool stuff.
The Art of the Book
Hello! This week I was so wrapped up in foil stamping and casing-in current orders I completely forgot to snap a few photos for all you readers. You'll just have to come back next week to see our first screen printed order, some custom cover material, and possibly a new video. But this day of blogging shall not go to waste: in lieu of the normal Edition One news, I've done a little research on other artists who make really cool pieces with books.
Fans of our Facebook page will remember a post I made about Brian Dettmer's book sculptures. I also checked out his show at the Toomey Tourrell gallery in San Francisco and left in awe. What would be perhaps a nightmarish experience for a book antiquarian or librarian, seeing the show reminded me how much can be contained within a single book. Through the careful dissection and gutting of the books on display, the viewer can appreciate all the care that went into writing and illustrating the book in the first place. Needless to say I was inspired. And much to my delight, I found two more artists doing similar things.
Grand Larousse – Guy Laramée, 2010
First up is Guy Laramée and his project called "The Great Wall." He writes on his site, "Having recently overthrown the American Empire in the 23rd century, the Chinese Empire set out to chronicle the history of the Great Panics during the 21st and 22nd centuries." (Keep reading) Because books are often perceived as symbolic of history and the passage of time, these imagined, future events carved out of heavy tomes are quite compelling.
Peter Pan, The Pirate Ship - Su Blackwell, 2007
On a more fantastical note, we next have Su Blackwell. Stories come to life in these beautifully constructed pieces sometimes encased in boxes or placed under glass. Preservation, imagination, and a love for books are all at play here. Although these books cease to be readable in the traditional sense, they can nevertheless recall in our minds our favorite stories from our childhood.
Now, enough about destruction and nostalgia: It's time to go and enjoy our weekends! Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week with some great books currently in production that I think just might stand the test of time.
Cover Treatment
Hey everyone! Charlotte here with another weekly recap at Edition One. First of all, I'm pleased to announce that we will be offering screen printing for hard cover books starting this April. For you this means a slightly less expensive alternative to foil stamping and more design flexibility. You get more coverage, a variety of colors, and a unique decoration for your self-published oeuvre. I'll have all the details and colors worked out by April, so for now enjoy these early samples we received today.
Also, as promised in a video Ben and I made about foil stamping, I present to you a video of myself using a big, heavy machine to foil stamp some black art paper covers. You can just see the die affixed to the plate, under which I place the gold foil before using both hands to safely tell the machine to smash the pigment onto the paper. Sound confusing? Watch the linked video and then watch this:
Finally, some photos of a really nice photography book we reprinted for Charles Traub. It's a large hard cover book with a printed wrap featuring photographs from around the USA. I find them quirky (definitely a compliment in my book), poignant, and reflective of a unique perspective on the American cultural landscape. Check out his website for an interactive experience with the images. Thanks for reading – I'll be back at you next week!
This week at Edition One
Things have started to pick up at our studios this week with large hard cover orders with plenty of custom features like slip-cases, inset images, and foil stamping. I always enjoy working on these kind of projects because they're fun to make and the end result is beautiful. Those books are still in the beginning stages (boards and cloth are being prepped to send through our awesome case-making machine), so in the meantime I shot a short video to show how a hard cover book is "cased-in" by hand. This process of gluing the book block into its custom-fit case definitely takes some practice and requires steady, sure hands. This video shows the casing-in of The Madison Club books from last week.
On the soft cover side of things, we sent out a great book from photographer Teru Kuwayama called Bastrack: One-Eight. Please excuse the cell phone quality images - they don't do this amazing work justice!
Thanks for reading and I'll be back at you next week with a new video, the announcement of a cool new finishing option if all goes to plan, and more books, of course! Have a great weekend, everyone.
- Charlotte
Weekly Recap
This week a little slower than usual at the Edition One studios but we didn't let that deter us from making great things like this video about our hot foil-stamping services. We definitely recommend foil-stamping because it makes for a really nice, polished finish to your hard cover books. Our stock colors are silver (shiny or dull), gold, red, black, and white. We can also do a "blind" stamp (no foil) for a simple yet stately debossed look. Watch the video now for more information:
More videos here.
We also sent out a couple neat hard cover orders. One of which we were happy to reprint for the San Francisco-based BAR Architects that features a front, black foil-stamp and our dark gray linen book cloth.
Our new Facebook page has been steadily gaining fans (are you one yet?) and we've been rewarding them with cool videos, links to our clients' blogs, and photos.
Finally, the author of this post (Charlotte) sent out a big hello to our mailing list contacts. If you'd like to stay in the loop via email, sign up for our newsletter by clicking right here.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!
Happy Belated New Year!
Greetings! We welcome you to our fresh new blog where you will be able to find weekly posts about the latest projects, promotions, and goings-on at the Edition One studios.
• We’ve made some big changes around the office. Most notably the office itself! Last summer we moved to a new location in West Berkeley where we have more space to take on big projects.
• We will also be making an appearance at this year’s SPE (Society for Photographic Education) conference across the bay in San Francisco.
• We’ve joined Facebook. Check out our new page for updates, photos, and other cool stuff like promotions and discounts.
• And to top it all off, we're running a promotion through the end of March 2012. Existing customers who refer a friend or colleague to Edition One Books deserve some thanks! Just tell your friend to mention your name when placing their order, and we'll discount your next order: 10% off of softcover books or 15% off a hardcover books. This discount can be applied once per order.
Round Robin 2
A sequel to our friends over at Pixar’s soft cover book from early last year, Round Robin 2 features new illustrations by Daniela Strijleva, Katy Wu, and Jennifer C. Chang based on the word game of the same name. The book has foil stamping on the front and an image printed on the inside of the art paper cover. Be sure to check out the Round Robin blog for more information!