Good printing comes by knowing what a press can do. In this workshop you will examine every aspect of the press with an eye toward maintaining all of its parts as well as adjusting those parts for optimal printing.

Not only will you learn how to maintain the press and trouble shoot problems, you will also learn how to fix the press. Knowledge of press maintenance will not only keep the press in good working order, it will make you a better printer.  

Students will learn how to evaluate the condition of any hand-fed cylinder proof press quickly and concisely; they will learn how to adjust rollers and impression, control inking and fix simple problems. They will learn how to maintain the press through lubrication and adjustment.

This is a perfect companion course for students enrolled in SFCB's Cylinder Core Certificate program; appropriate for students who have completed any of the Cylinder Core workshops.

Prerequisite: None

Materials to bring: All tools and materials will be provided.

About the Instructor: Alan Hillesheim (he/him) has been wrenching around printing presses for 35 years. Printing presses need to be moved, oiled, inked, cleaned, and maintained, in short they need attention like a six year old. Maintenance is a dirty business, but a necessary one for beautifully printed anything. Alan has a passion for the mechanics of the print studio and enjoys encouraging others to roll up their sleeves and grab a wrench. His 35 years in the letterpress business and “all-ten-fingers” count speak for themselves. Join him and wear old clothes.

Oh, and once the press is in fine order, Alan has a few secrets to divulge about perfect inking and stellar printing.

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).

Spend the day at SFCB making miniature book ornaments!

In this class we will sew single signatures that will then be cased into decorative covers. Variations on covering will include full paper, full cloth, and quarter cloth bindings. Gold foil labels of the current year, 2026, will also be available to place on the front cover.

These miniature books make great gifts and decorations and can even be used to note special memories from the past year.

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: Clair Emma Smith (she/her) is a bookbinder specializing in repair located in Oakland, California. She found her love of bookbinding during an art conservation internship at a historical society in Indiana, and she has been setting up her dream home studio ever since. Clair Emma relocated to the Bay Area after graduating from North Bennet Street School's bookbinding program in 2019 and works in private practice for both herself and other conservators as Bouguereau Bindery.  

Small-format tabletop presses are limited in what they can print, but offer a ton of possibilities for printers with bite-size projects without taking up much space. Here's your chance to spend a few hours learning how these diminutive little guys work and to print your own vintage-inspired postcards.

The instructor will supply postcard blanks pre-printed with a charming postcard back. Students will delve into SFCB's drawers of type and cuts to design their own simple image to print on the front. Students will come away from class with an introductory understanding of letterpress and relief printing, small format printing and its limits, and a small stack of their own postcards (plus others, if classmates wish to share)!

An excellent class for those curious about letterpress in general, and tabletop presses in particular. 

Prerequisite: None.

Materials to bring: None. All tools and materials will be provided.

About the Instructor: Brian Ferrett (he/him) has a printing degree from MATC and worked in offset web and screen printing. In 2008 he joined M&H Type as a typecasting apprentice under Lewis Mitchell. These days he co-manages M&H's daily operations, maintains the historic casting machines and presses, casts type and prints for the various Arion Press publications. Brian is a member of the Northern California chapter of the American Printing History Association, the American Typecaster Fellowship, and volunteers with San Francisco Public Library's annual Valentine’s Day broadside event. In his spare time he plays around with his Vandercook 219AB, C&P New Style 10x15, and his two Kelseys.

Discover the magic of Polaroid emulsion lifts in this hands-on workshop exploring one of photography's most tactile and unpredictable processes.

Participants will learn how to separate the delicate emulsion from a Polaroid photograph and transfer it onto a new surface, creating ethereal, painterly images that embrace chance, distortion, and imperfection.

Through demonstration and guided experimentation, this workshop will cover the complete emulsion lift process, from image selection, materials, handling techniques, transfer methods, and preservation. No prior experience is necessary.

Participants will leave with completed emulsion lift artworks, practical knowledge of the process, and the confidence to continue experimenting with this unique photographic technique on their own.

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.

About the Instructor: Ria Rajan (she/her) is an Intermedia artist and educator whose teaching emphasizes experimentation, material inquiry, and interdisciplinary making. Working across analog and digital media, she leads hands-on workshops that invite participants to explore experimentation with  image-making, and storytelling through accessible, process-driven approaches. Her workshops combine technical instruction with conceptual exploration, creating accessible, supportive environments for artists of all experience levels.  

Spend a joyful afternoon learning this centuries-old process that produces exciting, intricate designs, and offers endless possibilities for decorating paper. 

An historic process originally devised as a low-cost alternative to marbled papers, this class is playtime for adults! If you liked finger painting as a child, you'll enjoy making beautiful paste papers.

Over the course of the afternoon students will learn about mixing the paste and pigment combination as well as the variety of tools and techniques that can be used to create an abundance of patterns on the paper surface. Paste papers have an array of uses from book covers to gift wrap, and at the end of the day each student will leave with a stack of papers they made in class, suitably sized for gift wrapping.

Prerequisite: None

Materials to bring: Optional: One 2- or 3-inch housepaint brush (used is ok but must be clean); Pint or quart plastic containers with lids (for mixing colors, or taking colored paste home); Implements to draw in the paste, i.e., fork, comb, rubber stamps, cookie cutters, etc.

Be sure to wear old clothes and shoes.

About the Instructor: Leigh McLellan (she/her) typeset, letterpress printed, and hand bound letterpress books and broadsides from 1974 to 1990 under her imprint, Meadow Press. She has been an instructor at the San Francisco Center for the Book since 2002. She has also taught letterpress printing, bookbinding, and decorated papers at Mills College and the California College of Arts and Crafts, as well as workshops at the San Francisco Public Library, Stanford University, Pyramid Atlantic in Washington, DC, the Women's Graphic Center in Los Angeles, and the University of Iowa. Her work is in many library collections across the country, including the San Francisco Public Library, the University of San Francisco, Mills College, The University of California Bancroft Library, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England, among many others. Her work has been exhibited widely. In a related field, she has been an independent commercial book and graphic designer since 1976, working mostly for publishers in the Bay Area. In both pursuits, she has won many design awards. See Leigh's Meadow Press work at meadowpressbooks.com and her commercial design work at leighmcdesign.com.

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: Mimi Zycherman (she/her) is a Book Conservator at a Bay Area Institution. She graduated from the North Bennet Street School’s Bookbinding program in 2023. She also received a BA in Art and Materials Conservation from Columbia College Chicago. In addition to a fellowship at the Boston Athenæum, she has interned in conservation labs at Dartmouth, Harvard, and New York City’s Municipal Archives. She specializes in fine design bindings that have been exhibited throughout the U.S. Mimi is also a member of the Guild of Bookworkers and the Hand Bookbinders of California.

Building on the skills learned in Introduction to Western Paper Marbling, this workshop will take students through the techniques needed to marble on fabric.

Students will begin the day by advancing upon their marbling skills with the introduction of marbling on fabric. With the instructor's guidance, they will work on new patterns with an eye for nuance. The main focus will be on marbling fabric to create book cloth, and techniques for other textile uses will also be discussed.

At the end of the day, the instructor will demonstrate how to prepare dry pieces of marbled cloth for use in bookbinding. Students will leave with their own stack of 15 marbled fabric pieces.

Prerequisite: This workshop is open to beginners who are specifically interested in marbling fabric, though it's best as a next step after an introductory class such as Introduction to Western Paper Marbling.

Materials to bring: All tools and materials will be provided. Please wear comfortable shoes and clothing that you don't mind getting wet and/or stained.

About the Instructor: Pietro Accardi (he/him) owned a Bookbindery in Turin (Italy) for 12 years. He worked for Turin’s main Library, Municipal Archives, and University Libraries restoring and binding documents and books. He also runs his own paper marbling and decorative box making business. Now he lives near Lake Tahoe with wife, cats and a studio. He is currently working for the library of special collections of University of Reno doing restoration work and teaches workshops.