SFCB is thrilled to welcome visiting instructor Sarah Matthews.

Step into the world of wood type and discover how letters can become both language and art.

In this one-day intensive, you’ll dive into SFCB’s rich type collection to explore playful approaches to composition, pattern, and layering. Through inking, overprinting, and color mixing, you’ll transform type into texture and design — then print a final quote or saying that stands boldly atop your layered background.

Perfect for beginners and returning printers alike, this workshop celebrates the joy of process, discovery, and the expressive potential of type.

The available scholarships for this workshop have been awarded.

Prerequisite:

None

Tools/Materials to bring:
None. All tools and materials are provided. Students should wear comfortable clothes (layers!) and shoes. 

About the Instructor:
Sarah Matthews' work reflects her commitment to exploring the complex issues of race, equality, and gender, while shedding light on social injustice. Through her layered prints and artist books, she documents the struggles of breaking through societal barriers. As an African-American, Mrs. Matthews has experienced firsthand the impact of negative media images that portray her community as inferior. Through her art, she aims to challenge these stereotypes and empower her audience to recognize the beauty, intelligence, and importance of all individuals, regardless of race.

Sarah Matthews is a highly skilled printmaker and book artist with a background in art and business. She holds an MA in Art & the Book from the Corcoran College of Arts and Design at George Washington University, an MBA with a Marketing Concentration, and a BS in Sociology from Bowie State University. Her works have been exhibited internationally and are part of prestigious collections at institutions such as the National Museum of African American History & Culture Library, Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, George Washington University’s Gelman Library, University of Puget Sound, and Samford University. Mrs. Matthews is also a dedicated educator, teaching Artist Books at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and bookbinding and printmaking classes at various art centers and platforms.

Bookbinding Core Certificate Program

The San Francisco Center for the Book celebrates the craft and art of bookbinding. Our Bookbinding Core Certificate Program introduces students to four different binding models, leading them through the history and evolution of bookmaking.  It provides students a comprehensive foundation to delve into the practice of binding and qualifies them to rent studio time in our bindery. Core classes must be taken in order, 1 through 4.

Click here to learn more about the Bookbinding Core Certificate Program and how to receive a discount!

Bookbinding Core 2: Flat-Back Case Binding

In this second Core Bookbinding class, students will create what most of us refer to as a hardbound book. In bookbinding terms, it is known as a case binding; where a sewn textblock is glued into a separate structure known as a case. Students will learn more about the mechanics of books as they build on skills from Core 1 and expand both their vocabulary and capabilities in and around the bindery.

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite:
Bookbinding Core 1

Materials to Bring:
All tools and materials will be provided. Students are also welcome to bring any leftover pastepapers from Core 1 that they might want to use on their book.

About the Instructor:
Madison Halaby Gordon (she/they) is a bookbinder and conservator-in-training living in Oakland, CA, currently working at Zukor Art Conservation and the Walt Disney Family Museum. She is fascinated by paper, and loves making and repairing practical, fun, accessible, and well-made structures for the use and enjoyment of everyday people. Madison is also trained in letterpress printing and has worked previously with the Key Printing & Binding (Oakland, CA) and Small Editions (Brooklyn, NY).

Learn how to print on the Risograph, a machine that combines the ease of a photocopier with the stencil concept of silkscreen. A Risograph creates a stencil for each layer, printing a single color at a time. Inks are semi-opaque, so when layered two colors can create a third overlay.

Students will explore the process of digital Risograph printing through hands-on practice. They'll learn the basics of preparing digital files and using the equipment. Color separations & resizing of images will be discussed using Photoshop. By the end of the session, they'll have a small stack of Risograph prints to take home.

This workshop focuses on the digital approach to printing with a Risograph. The Introduction to Analog Risograph Printing workshop focuses on printing from paper substrates laid on the glass (like a photocopier). Either class will suffice as the prerequisite for the Risograph Certification workshop, though students are welcome to take both. Successful completion of the certification allows students to rent time on SFCB's Risograph.

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply. 

Prerequisite:
None

Tools/Materials to bring:

• Laptop computer, ideally Mac, with Spectrolite software downloaded; Photoshop is not required but will be discussed. If you don't have a Mac laptop, please let us know so we can accommodate you, or sign up for the Analog workshop instead.
• A digital file you’d like to print, it does not have to be color separated. Print size will be 8.5 X 11" or 11 x 17". 

About the Instructor:
Yasmeen Abedifard is an Iranian-American artist born in the San Francisco Bay Area and is currently based in Oakland. She holds an MFA from Cornell University. Her work is centered around storytelling mediums, including comics, illustrations, and animation.

She is currently teaching in the Comics program at The California College of the Arts (CCA), the UC Berkeley Art Studio, CCA Extension, and Dominican University. Her work has been featured in various spaces, such as the SF Art Book Fair, Rubenstein Arts Center, Shapeshifters Cinema, Jack Hanley Gallery, and San Francisco Center for the Book, and has received various accolades, including the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Minicomic for Death Bloom and the Mocca Award of Excellence for When to Pick a Pomegranate. She has taught comic workshops at BAMPFA, Mendocino Art Center, Secret Room, Kala Art Institute, Sequential Artists Workshop, and Black Mountain Institute. She has created several published comics, such as When to Pick a Pomegranate (pub. Silver Sprocket), Death Bloom (pub. Lucky Pocket), and Burnt (pub. Wiggle Bird Mailing Club).

She is also part of a comics collective called D.R.Y. with her peers, Daniel Zhou and Raul Higuera, aimed at fostering community and highlighting the Bay Area comics scene.

Learn how to print on the Risograph, a machine that combines the ease of a photocopier with the stencil concept of silkscreen. A Risograph creates a stencil for each layer, printing a single color at a time. Inks are semi-opaque, so when layered two colors can create a third overlay.

In this class you’ll create two image layers by hand, and each student will print a 2-color poster in an edition of 20. Come ready to turn sketches or drawings into your poster. If you would prefer not to draw, consider bringing clip art, traced designs, stamps, or collage elements to make your design.

This workshop focuses on the analog approach to printing with a Risograph. The Introduction to Digital Risograph Printing workshop focuses on preparing files and printing via digital transmission. Either class will suffice as the prerequisite for the Risograph Certification workshop, though students are welcome to take both. Successful completion of the certification allows students to rent time on SFCB's Risograph.

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply. 

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to bring:

• Sketches, drawings, photographs, or collage imagery no larger than 10” x 16” on paper or clear acetate (spot imagery smaller than 10” x 16” will work as well).
• Pens: black ink, all kinds of tips/types (sharpies, markers, brush pens, felt tip, different sized nibs, etc.) Faber Castell's PITT pens or Micron's are examples where you have different sized nibs. You can also bring pencils (especially softer/darker ones if you want more hand-drawn imagery). Essentially anything to make a drawn mark with! Colored markers in yellows and pinks won't work well, though.
• Photos can be fun. Make sure they aren't precious in case you want to cut them up. Grayscale with a wide value range work the best, rather than color photos. You can print out or photocopy what you want to play with and bring that, rather than the original.
• Collage materials: papers with patterns, tapes like washi, templates or stencils for making shapes, black or dark construction paper for cutting out shapes.
• Stamps/stamp pad and letter/number stickers are great if you want to work with text.
• Scissors or X-acto knife; glue stick or clear tape; eraser.
• Please print out any digital imagery before class, no larger than 11" x 17", with a 1/2" border all around.

About the Instructor:
Nathalie Roland (she/her) is a San Francisco-based printmaker and painter who has been creating woodcut prints since 1991. Working from her Sunset district garage studio known as Sunset Paperworks, she specializes in woodcut reduction prints using pine or mulberry wood blocks that transform through multiple stages of carving and printing. She has studied relief printing under Zarina Hashmi, screen printing at Ape Do Good, worked as a bookbinder at the Arion Press and was formerly the in-house Riso printer for Yellow Owl workshop. 

Learn to make handmade valentines the historical way!

Before the advent of the commercial Valentine's card, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century folk made handwritten and hand-painted Valentines called puzzle purses for their friends and lovers. These valentines unfold like pinwheels from compact squares to reveal hidden messages and illustrations. Because the cards needed to be folded and read in a certain order, they were referred to as puzzle purses.

In this workshop, you'll learn about the history of the puzzle purse, see their traditional rhymes and forms of decoration, and try your hand at making a few of your own.

Prerequisite:
None

Tools/Materials to bring:
All materials will be provided, but students are welcome to bring watercolors and other favorite art supplies that can be used on paper.

About the Instructor:
Jane Knoll (they/them) was the San Francisco Center for the Book's 2025 Type Devil. After an undergraduate in writing and printmaking from Bennington College and a diploma in bookbinding from North Bennet Street School, Jane was awarded two fellowships at the Boston Athenæum's conservation lab and worked as Assistant Book Conservator at the Northeast Document Conservation Center. Currently preparing for a master's in book conservation, Jane studies the archaeology of the book, with special interests in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century structures, folk repairs, and personalized bindings, and has two publications on the American scaleboard binding.

Hand lettering for all levels! Join us for this innovative and welcoming approach to hand lettering with the talented Billy Ola Hutchinson.

This three session crash course in calligraphy will provide students with the building blocks necessary to continue their calligraphy practice on their own. Each of the three evenings will focus on a different hand: Billy's informal take on Gothic, Italic, and Copperplate. Students will learn foundational techniques such as pen position, how individual letters relate to one another, and how to rule out lines for alignment. They'll also learn hacks for how to avoid ruling out entirely!

Students will complete the course with an understanding of basic penmanship and letter formation, as well as the processes, materials, and layout techniques used in calligraphy. Most materials will be supplied.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to bring:

• Mechanical pencil
• Ultra Fine Point Sharpie, preferably in red but any color will do
• C-Thru® B-85; 2" x 18" 8ths Graph Beveled Ruler in Inches

About the Instructor:
Billy Ola Hutchinson’s passion for lettering began in pre-school with the assistance of Mommy Billie. Billy and Billie spent hours shaping letterforms day in and day out. Later in life, Little Billy parlayed that lettering passion into a calligraphic profession, creating a petit line of stationery, penning custom lettering for clients, designing a line of porcelain for San Francisco's luxury speciality store, Gump’s and of course as an instructor at SFCB—taking students through those first steps Little Billy took with Big Billie. Billy's lettering has been featured in magazines, wedding invitations, place cards, monograms, and brand identities.

SFCB is thrilled to welcome visiting instructor Anne Covell.

The Japanese Bookmaking Intensive is designed to give students the unique opportunity to learn three distinct Japanese crafts: Paper patterning and book cover decoration, hand bookbinding, and 2-flap portfolio boxmaking.

Each day we will build upon skills learned in previous sessions to create a body of work that is considerate of the resources, materials, and aesthetics that define Japanese bookmaking.

Students can expect to leave this workshop with a collection of hand bound books housed in a custom built Japanese portfolio, as well as a stack of luscious hand dyed decorative papers to use for further exploration.

On the first day of the workshop, we will begin by learning several traditional methods for decorating Japanese washi paper including brush and dip dyeing with natural dyes common to Japan such as kakishibu (persimmon tannin), clove, and indigo, as well as burnishing and embossing techniques using cut stone and wood blocks. We will also experiment with shibori, a manual resist dyeing technique for creating patterns in cloth and paper that dates to the 8th century, as well as momigami, a folding and crumpling technique (also known as kneaded paper) that strengthens the paper and gives it an appearance similar to leather. We will then use our handmade decorative papers to create laminated cover papers for our bindings. Students will have the opportunity to work from blocks carved with traditional Japanese patterns to emboss their papers for historical effect.

On the second day, we will use these materials to bind a selection of traditional Japanese books: the account binding (Daifuku chō), multi-section binding (Retchōsō), and stab binding (Yotsume Toji). Additionally, we will also create an accordion (Orihon) with pockets to house a selection of the paper samples we create.

On the final day, we will create a two-flap Japanese wraparound case with bone clasp closures to house our books and to tie together the work we produced into an elegant, finished product.

The available scholarships for this workshop have been awarded.

Prerequisite:
Ideally, students will have some bookbinding/making experience. This class will be physically demanding and intensive.

Tools/Materials to bring:
Bookbinder's toolkit including: bonefolder, awl, glue brush, 4 bookbinder's needles or tapestry needles with a small eye, X-Acto or scalpel with extra blades, sharp scissors, ruler, pencil. Please wear clothes that can get messy; aprons are available.

About the Instructor:
Anne Covell is a book artist, edition bookbinder, and hand papermaker. She holds an MFA in Book Arts from the University of Iowa Center for the Book where she was the recipient of an Iowa Arts Fellowship, and an MA in Library and Information Science & Graduate Certificate in Book Studies from the University of Iowa where she was a Robert A. Olsen Fellow in Special Collections. She studied Asian and Western papermaking techniques with Timothy Barrett, and has taught for numerous educational institutions including the Morgan Art of Papermaking Conservatory, Penland School of Craft, and the University of Georgia study abroad program in Cortona, Italy, among others. Her work has been exhibited internationally and can be seen in an expanding list of private collections, special collections libraries, and museums worldwide. Covell lives and works out of her home studio in La Mesa, California.

SFCB is thrilled to welcome visiting instructor Islam Aly.

The stiff-leaf binding is a non-sewn technique ideal for assembling printed sheets into a rigid,durable book. Learn how to transform your prints and papers into a beautifully bound artist’s book using simple folding, gluing, and cover-making methods.

Learn the fundamentals of stiff-leaf binding, including hinge construction, page attachment, and material considerations with a balance of demonstration, hands-on practice, and discussion. Variations such as frames, windows, and layered pages will also be introduced.

Participants will create their bindings with time for troubleshooting and group discussion. By the end, participants will complete different sample books and gain the skills to adapt the structure for their projects.

Prerequisite:
Basic bookbinding experience (such as Introduction to Bookbinding) is helpful, but not required. Good hand skills are important, as some tasks involve precise cutting and folding.

Tools/Materials to Bring:
None. All tools and materials will be supplied.

About the Instructor:
Islam Aly is a book artist and lecturer of bookbinding at the German University in Cairo. He earned both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Art Education from Helwan University, and later pursued an MFA in Book Arts at the University of Iowa, where he refined his artistic focus. He went on to complete a Ph.D. in Teaching and Learning with a concentration in Art Education at the University of Iowa.

His practice lies at the intersection of culture, technology, and aesthetics. Drawing on historical bookbinding traditions and integrating digital technologies, Islam reimagines the role of the book in contemporary art. His work pushes the boundaries of book art, offering innovative approaches to how history and technology can coexist on the page.