Foruli Special Edition
I haven’t written about bookbinding for a while. The development of the Editions Ballard factory is slowly progressing but there’s no news to report.
The chain of creation I follow doesn’t start with Gutenberg but with the invention of the stapler in the 19th century and Chester Carlson’s invention of the photocopier in the 1930′s.
This is the most elegant and extraordinary book concept using facsimile pages.
This is a design concept by Andy Vella for a proposed limited edition of the Facory Records history ‘Shadowplayers’ by James Nice. It is not now going ahead, but we thought it looked so good that we would show it to you anyway.
The book provides an historical account of the record label. Therfore the concept was to make the whole book seem document-like. Every page would look like it had been copied – in fact faxed – but old-style pixellated type-wise for the body copy, leaving in the mistakes that naturally happen as part of this process.
The book was to be bound by a single ring of metal with various translucent items and a specific number. It would appear as a bunch of loose-leaf pages printed on very stable waterproof paper, bound by one object, then rolled and set within an airtight & watertight stainless steel canister which itself would be individually numbered.

