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 3: Limp Paper Binding

In centuries past, books were sometimes sewn onto cords and then laced into soft covers before being bound for a specific collection or library. Often covered with calfskin, these limp vellum bindings became an important structure all their own. In this class students will bind a book using these bindings as a model but employing thick paper as the folded and laced wrapper. Students will learn to use a sewing frame and the skill of sewing headbands.

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 and 2

Materials to Bring:
None, all tools and materials are provided.

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).

Experience the pleasure of working with vellum and learn to make this enduring and beautiful historical structure.

Vellum is a prepared animal skin — usually made from calf, sheep or goat — known for its smooth surface and itslongevity. It was commonly used as a covering material for limp or ‘stiff-boarded’ bindings from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century all across Europe. Indeed, until the development of the cloth case in the 1820s, vellum was commonly used as a cheaper alternative to leather covers.

The limp vellum style was revived in the late nineteenth century by William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement in England, who recognised its simple beauty. It is an extremely elegant and refined structure, and relatively straightforward to make.

Students will sew the book, using linen thread, around sewing supports made from thongs of alum-tawed skin, another very durable material with roots going back to medieval times. Plain linen endbands will be sewn on with linen thread around an alum-tawed core.

The vellum cover is made ‘off the book’ from good quality vellum, from Cowley’s in the UK, one of the last traditional manufacturers of vellum in the world.

This class is particularly useful for those who have completed the bookbinding core classes and are keen to learn more about historical binding structures.

Prerequisite:
Bookbinding Core 1-4, or equivalent experience preparing textblocks, sewing, and trimming.

Materials to Bring:
Your personal bookbinding tools

About the Instructor:
Michael Burke (he/him) studied bookbinding with Dominic Riley and paper conservation with Karen Zukor. Michael lives in England, where he teaches bookbinding as well at events across the UK. Michael researches the structures of ancient and medieval bindings and received his Masters degree in the History of the Book from the University of London in 2011.

Michael is a co-founder of Book Camp, an immersive residential bookbinding experience which aims to teach new generations of binders.

In this informal monthly session, we'll engage in unconventional exercises to spark fresh approaches to drawing.

If you're hungry for a challenge, or want to try new techniques, or if you simply want to draw in the company of others, join us on the third Thursday of the month. 

The exercises will change each month, so you may wish to sign up for multiple sessions. No drop-ins, please.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to Bring:
Bring your preferred drawing materials and an open mind. Paper and basic tools will be provided.

About the Instructor:
Tim Svenonius (he/him) is a mixed-media artist whose work explores the intersections of history, memory and myth. A voracious reader and an avid researcher, his work is shaped by deep investigations into arcane knowledge and lore. He has worked for two decades in the museum field, as a designer, writer, and producer of digital media. In 2015 he self-published a monograph, A Book of Lost Latitudes, which explores the role of the whale in mythology and literature, through evocative drawings and found texts.

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 4: Classic Rounded Back Cloth Binding

The final class in our Core Bookbinding series (taught in two sessions) uses skills learned in each previous class to create a beautiful and classic rounded back cloth binding. After sewing, the book will be rounded and backed before the boards are attached and covered. This binding style points to many historical structures that came before it, making it an ideal structure for anyone interested in learning to bind books with leather, or learning to repair books.  More terms, more tools, more techniques: such are the rewards of the skilled bookbinder!

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, 2 and 3

Materials to Bring:
None, all tools and materials are provided.

About the Instructor:
Erika Lindensmith (she/her) has been a book conservator for almost 30 years. She trained in library and archives conservation at the University of Texas and worked at institutions in Wales, Scotland and New York before settling in California. Her interests are historical book structures and repair. She is excited to share her love of making books.

Although known from around 1650, pastepapers were made really popular in the mid 1700s by the Moravian Sisters of Herrnhut in Saxony. Recent study of these papers has sparked a revival of interest in them, and in this workshop the instructor will introduce you to the methods, materials and patterns used on the original pastepapers.

Class will begin by mixing the colors using natural earth pigments, and making the few simple tools used by the Sisters. Students will then reproduce each of their original designs using the same colors, patterns, freehand brush strokes and tooling. Part two of the class will bring us up to date with a wide range of inventive techniques for making modern pastepapers.

The instructor will demonstrate how to make combs, stamps, rollers and other mark-making tools used in pastepaper design, and show a range of techniques he uses to create many different effects, from the simple pulled papers, to the highly regular striped patterns.

This class may be of interest to students interested in historical processes; those who enjoyed the pastepaper process in Bookbinding Core 1 or the Paste Papers & Gift Wrap workshops.

Prerequisite:
None

Tools/materials to bring:

Optional:

• 1 inch and 1-1/2 inch paint brushes
• cellulose sponge
• notebook and pencil
• things to make marks in paper, such as: string or cord, plastic decorator's comb (Artex spreaders), natural materials such as leaves, old credit cards, rubber rollers (brayers), bubble wrap

About the Instructor:
Michael Burke (he/him) studied bookbinding with Dominic Riley and paper conservation with Karen Zukor. Michael lives in England, where he teaches bookbinding as well at events across the UK. Michael researches the structures of ancient and medieval bindings and received his Masters degree in the History of the Book from the University of London in 2011.

Michael is a co-founder of Book Camp, an immersive residential bookbinding experience which aims to teach new generations of binders.

The Ideal Sketchbook is modeled on the ones used by Wordsworth and Ruskin as they wandered the Lake District to draw and write. Strong, elegant and pleasing to use, it was the 'daybook' of choice for all the great Romantic poets and artists.

The Sketchbook is an honest structure made from good quality materials, opens beautifully flat and is very durable. Most importantly for the beginning bookbinder, it can be made at home with no equipment, just a few simple tools, and requires no pressing.

Working from full sized sheets, we will fold and slit the paper to give a beautiful, feathery deckled edge. We’ll sew the book with linen thread on hand-made tapes, and sew in a cloth hinge for strength. The spine is rounded, for easy opening, but not backed, which eliminates the need of a laying press. The case is made from greyboard covered in a strong natural canvas.

If time allows, students will tool their finished binding with creative lines and circles, using traditional finishing tools and both carbon and colourful metallic foils. All this makes for a handsome, rugged book that can withstand all the hard knocks associated with going 'out into the field'.

Prerequisite:
Bookbinding Core 2 or equivalent experience preparing a textblock.

Tools/Materials to bring:
None. All tools and materials will be provided. Students are also welcome to bring any of their own favorite bookbinding tools.

About the Instructor:
Dominic Riley (he/him) is an internationally renowned bookbinder, artist, lecturer and teacher. He has his bindery in England, from where he travels across the UK teaching and lecturing. He spends part of the year teaching in San Francisco and across the USA. His work is mostly restoration and Design Binding, for which he has won many prizes in the Designer Bookbinders competition. He was elected a Fellow of DB in 2008 and is Patron of the New Zealand Association of Book Crafts. His bindings are in collections worldwide, including the British Library, the Grolier Club in New York and the San Francisco Public Library. In 2013 he won first prize, the Sir Paul Getty Award, in the International Bookbinding Competition. Dominic is a past President of the Society of Bookbinders. Dominic and Michael Burke are co-founders of Book Camp, an immersive residential bookbinding experience which aims to teach new generations of binders.

He has taught masterclasses in the USA, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, at the Centro del Bel Libro in Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Canada.

Learn basic bookbinding structures and stitches that every beginning book artist should know!

Students will learn five staple structures of the bookbinding world: pamphlet stitch, two versions of one-sheet wonders, accordion folding, and a Japanese stab binding. If you’ve been curious about book arts basics, this is a great starter class; in three hours, you’ll gain the know-how to start making books of your own.

Students also learn about local resources, bookbinding tools, and SFCB’s Bookbinding Core Program, as well as protocol for studio rental. 

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:
All tools and materials will be provided. Students are also welcome to bring any of their own favorite bookbinding tools.

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.

If you have heard about letterpress but are not really sure what it is or how it works, this class will allow you to peer inside the rich history and engaging techniques of letterpress printing.

This class introduces the process, the materials, the machines, and the satisfaction of printing by hand on a Cylinder proof press. Participants will learn the basics of setting type using SFCB’s vast collection of lead type and decorative ornaments as well as inking, locking up and pulling a print.

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:
None

About the Instructor:
Brian Lieske (he/him) wandered into SFCB many years ago and continues to haunt the place. He completed both the bookbinding and letterpress cores as well as several of the summer historic structure classes. He enjoys making fully hand-sewn books and still fights to not over-tighten his kettle stitches. He’s lived in San Francisco for more than 20 years having arrived shortly after completing an MFA at the University of Texas at Austin.