This visually intricate structure of opposing flaps or “flags” creates a one-of-a-kind book that showcases contrasting or cohering images and text.

This stunning structure was created by Hedi Kyle and has infinite possibilities. The book “claps” open, and pages can be read individually or all at once when the accordion spine is stretched to its full panoramic landscape. The Flag Book workshop will make this seemingly complex form easy to learn for any level of book arts practitioner.

Prerequisite:
None

Tools/Materials to bring:
Personal ephemera (images and/or text) to be included in the book.

About the Instructor:
Bettina Pauly (she/her) lives in San Francisco and works as both a book artist and a letterpress printer with Kim Vanderheiden at Painted Tongue Studios, Oakland, California. She loves books and boxes both as physical objects and as containers of meaning. She is interested in a variety of folded, sewn and woven structures in which she can incorporate her 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 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:
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.

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 1: Coptic Binding

This class introduces students to the craft with the Coptic stitch, one of the earliest structures in binding. Students will spend the morning making their own decorative pastepapers, then use them in the afternoon when binding their book.

In addition to coming away with a finished book made by hand, students will also be introduced to the tools and terms of bookbinding. Basic practices and equipment will be discussed as students familiarize themselves with both skills and safety measures needed for working in a 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:
None. Beginners are welcome. 

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

About the Instructor:
A life-long love of working with her hands led Megan (she/her) to study bookbinding at the North Bennet Street School in Boston. Upon graduation in 2015, she went to work in Santa Barbara as the Head Bookbinder for Heirloom Bindery, followed by an apprenticeship at the Arion Press in San Francisco. Now the Lead Bookbinder, she is responsible for running day-to-day production in the Arion bindery. An active member of the Guild of Bookworkers and board member of the Hand Bookbinders of California, she also creates her own work as Long Arrow Bindery. She still loves making books every day.

This workshop is comprised of two evening sessions: Wednesdays, May 6 and 13 from 6-9:30pm.

Fancy books, plain ones, rustic or refined, historical and modern all have used leather in some fashion. Even many books without the tiniest scrap of leather still have borrowed working methods from leather bookbinding. 

This class will explain and demonstrate the technical aspects of knives, and you will experience how to get and maintain a great edge. We will look at the various advantages and disadvantages of PSA abrasive sheets, Japanese water stones, oil stones, and stropping compounds. We will also explain the different surfaces available for using your knife, and how they act on knives. If you have a knife for leather working that has dulled or lost its shape, and you'd like to learn how to tune it up yourself, please bring it to work on. 

Later we will focus on the various methods used to pare leather: edge paring with knives, and all-over paring with a Schärf-Fix or Brockman paring machine. There will be plenty of time for guided practice on your own in order to gain confidence with this essential skill. For those who learn quickly, paring for onlays and labels will be covered.

The class fee includes a custom made paring knife students will need to use in class and will be able to keep for future leather work. 

This workshop is a prerequisite for most leather bookbinding workshops at SFCB, including classes with Michael Burke and Dominic Riley.

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. The class fee includes an edge paring knife for students to keep for use in future leather workshops and leather bookbinding work.

About the Instructor:
Juliayn Coleman (she/her) has been a professional bookbinder since her graduation from the North Bennet Street School bookbinding program in 2003. Her private practice encompasses all levels of book repair and conservation, custom portfolio and enclosure making, teaching, and being a good ambassador for the craft of bookbinding in general. Some of her creative and professional projects can be seen here.

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 1: Coptic Binding

This class introduces students to the craft with the Coptic stitch, one of the earliest structures in binding. Students will spend the morning making their own decorative pastepapers, then use them in the afternoon when binding their book.

In addition to coming away with a finished book made by hand, students will also be introduced to the tools and terms of bookbinding. Basic practices and equipment will be discussed as students familiarize themselves with both skills and safety measures needed for working in a 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:
None. Beginners are welcome. 

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

The Drum Leaf binding is a simple and elegant adhesive binding ideal for presenting artwork in a book format. It opens flat and allows the artwork to be presented as a two-page spread flowing across the gutter without the interruption of sewing thread. Each signature is made from a single sheet of thickish paper folded in half and drummed to the adjacent signatures. Primarily used to bind existing artwork into a book format, the substantial pages and lay flat structure also make an excellent multi-media sketch book.  

In this class we will make a blank book with a drum leaf binding, a leather spine and decorative paper covers. This is an opportunity to get a very simplified sneak peek into working with leather. Students will be introduced to different material and decorative techniques, as we discuss different ways to finish and decorate this structure.

Prerequisite:
None

Tools/Materials to Bring:
None, all tools and materials are provided. Students are welcome to bring their own bookbinding tools.

About the Instructor:
Beth Redmond (she/her) was first introduced to making books in the photography program at San Jose State. She loves binding books for their perfect marriage of functionality and creativity.  After learning the basics of a well-made book at SFCB she went on to study fine binding at the American Academy of Bookbinding in Telluride CO. She works primarily with leather to create bindings for public and private collections. Her work can be seen at bredmond.weebly.com.

We are excited to welcome visiting instructor Myungah Hyon for two workshops on innovative book structures.

Join us for a hands-on workshop exploring the waterfall flip book, an engaging book structure that transforms a sequence of images into movement through touch. This workshop welcomes beginners, artists, designers, and book enthusiasts interested in interactive book forms. It provides a unique opportunity to discover how simple paper structures can convert still images into dynamic visual experiences.

Participants will learn the mechanics of the waterfall structure and how images unfold in rhythmic sequences. Through guided demonstrations and individual experimentation, each participant will design and construct a flip book using drawings, photographs, patterns, or abstract imagery.

By the end of the workshop, participants will leave with a fully functioning interactive artist’s book and new ideas for incorporating movement and sequence into future book projects.

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:
Feel free to bring images you would like to work with—prints, photographs, drawings, or patterned papers are all great options and will help you create a book that feels personal and unique. Students are also welcome to bring any of their own favorite bookbinding tools.

About the Instructor:
Myungah Hyon is an artist and educator specializing in interactive book forms and sculptural paper structures. Currently a faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she authored Book Book to provide an essential guide to binding techniques, and Kaleido_Book to explore the world of experimental paper engineering. Her practice merges precise construction with the mechanical possibilities of paper to create dynamic, non-linear stories.

We are excited to welcome visiting instructor Myungah Hyon for two workshops on innovative book structures.

This workshop presents playful and innovative book forms that change shape through movement and interaction. Emphasizing the Never-Ending Book and Kaleidocycles, the session examines how simple paper techniques transform flat pages into interactive three-dimensional objects. Participants will engage in hands-on activities to observe how images shift, reappear, and evolve.

Based on Myungah Hyon’s original publication, Kaleido_Book, this artist-led workshop introduces folding and assembly methods developed through her practice. Participants will explore pattern, repetition, and personal imagery as they work with templates from the book and adapt them into their own unique forms. Participants will leave the workshop with several finished book forms and a fresh approach to making artists’ books that combine creativity, play, and structure.

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:
Feel free to bring images you would like to work with—prints, photographs, drawings, or patterned papers are all great options and will help you create a book that feels personal and unique. Students are also welcome to bring any of their own favorite bookbinding tools.

About the Instructor:
Myungah Hyon is an artist and educator specializing in interactive book forms and sculptural paper structures. Currently a faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she authored Book Book to provide an essential guide to binding techniques, and Kaleido_Book to explore the world of experimental paper engineering. Her practice merges precise construction with the mechanical possibilities of paper to create dynamic, non-linear stories.