Bookbinding is a craft that not only holds your printed matter together, but also gives it a unique look. Below you will find a comprehensive overview of the most common and some special binding methods, including special variants such as Japanese knotting, elastic and ribbon mounting, hardcover options and much more.
If you are planning to make a book, sooner or later you will need to know the spine thickness. This is important to know whether your book will fit through a letterbox when sending it by post, but most importantly, it is essential for the design of your cover.
A method we mainly use for books with a maximum of 80 pages. You can choose between standard staples or so-called eyelet staples, whereby the document is placed in a simple ring binder. The smallest format you can staple is A6 (105 x 148 mm).
After folding and stapling (as with saddle stitch stapling), the spine is pressed to give it a “square” shape.
Threadless binding is the ideal technique for brochures and magazines. As the name suggests, no thread is used, but glue instead. Loose sections or pages are milled at the spine and attached to the cover with glue. Is a long lifespan important? Then you can specifically choose PUR glue. With this ultra-strong glue, your book will last a lifetime.
The sections are sewn together with thread and then glued into a soft cover (brochure).
Thread-sewn or sewn-bound binding is the absolute cream of the crop and is very popular for high-quality printed matter such as coffee table books, and with good reason. This has a lot to do with the durable nature of this binding method, which significantly increases the lifespan of your book. The sections are sewn and placed in a hard cover (case).
Wire-O binding is a convenient and sturdy binding method, ideal for books with many pages, such as catalogues, diaries, and calendars. Pages are punched and bound together with a metal (Wire-O) spiral. It is important to note that your printed matter may only have a maximum thickness of 28 mm. Do you like a bit of colour? Wire-O is available in countless colours.
Otabind is a recent finishing technique that ensures your book stays open nicely while reading. With this technique, the cover of the book is not glued to the spine of the book block, but to the first and last pages of the book block. You can recognise it by the spine that curves nicely when you open the book, or the extra crease line on the front and back covers.
Pages are not permanently bound but placed loosely in a ring binder or folder.
This binding method combines a sewn paperback binding with a glued spine. The spine of the sewn book blocks is left exposed and finished with glue.
The binding thread remains visible. A good example is text that is conjured up in the spine of the sections. In that case, we glue the spine with transparent or lightly pigmented glue. We can also colour the book block completely.
This binding method starts with a threadless or sewn book block. The book blocks are covered with linen and then glued to the third page of the cover. In a thread-sewn version, the linen can be omitted.
Japanese binding is an ancient traditional technique, formed using four or five holes, depending on the size of your book. No glue or folds are used, allowing you to create a beautiful, handmade book.
A simple thread binding (thread instead of staples), similar to stapled binding
We mainly use a singer stitch for thin books with soft covers. There are two types to choose from: in the spine of the printed matter and the flat singer stitch. For a saddle stitch in the spine, we insert the sections and sew them together in the spine. For a flat saddle stitch, we lay the sheets on top of each other and sew the entire stack of paper. Whichever technique you choose, the nice thing is that you can always choose from different colours of thread to give your creation a little extra pizzazz.
Combination of flexible cover and glued or sewn content, often with special crease lines.
Parts of the book (or the entire binding) are deliberately uneven or “floating”, causing sections to protrude or detach from the spine.
Printed paper is laminated onto 1 mm cardboard and folded in half, after which these sections are glued together to form pages approximately 2 mm thick.
With this binding method, we glue a number of sheets of paper onto cardboard. You often see block gluing used for memo pads and notebooks, but other applications such as tear-off calendars are also perfectly suited to this method.
The advantage of book screws is that they do not form a permanent connection. This means you can easily open the binding and change, add to or replace the inner sheets. What’s more, the binding can always be expanded with various accessories such as extensions, book screw loops, spacer sleeves, cover caps and rivets. Very popular for menus!
With this binding method, pages are glued into the spine but are not trimmed at the top. This means that the sections remain closed. Important text cannot be placed on the closed sections, but you can print on them to give your book an artistic look.
A flat or round elastic band is fitted around (or through) the book, in various colours.
One or more ribbons are attached to the spine of the book.
Tabs are punched out of the paper so that sections or chapters can be found quickly.
When choosing a binding method, factors such as the number of pages, desired appearance, ease of use, budget and print run all play a role. Please feel free to contact us for personal advice.
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