If you've been looking for a book with a nearly indestructible cover, or just a unique binding, this is your answer! Straight out of a 1970s Italian phone booth, this 360-degree flexible binding offers many advantages because it bends and does not break.

Find out how to create a unique art book using textiles, stitching, inks and collage. We start by adhering a patchwork of fabrics onto freezer paper. When dried the resulting strip of material peels off the freezer paper and is ready to be folded into an accordion.

To paraphrase Lewis Carroll, we begin at the beginning. This, the first of our Core Bookbinding series, introduces students to the craft with the Coptic stitch, one of the earliest structures in binding.

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 work in our bindery.

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 work in our bindery.

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.

In centuries past, books were sometimes sewn onto cords and then laced into soft covers before being bound for a specific collection or library. In this class students will bind a book using these bindings as a model but employing thick paper as the folded and laced wrapper.

The final class in our Core Bookbinding series uses skills learned in each previous class to create a beautiful and classic rounded back cloth binding.

Working from pre-cut materials students will learn three simple enclosures: Folded Paper Portfolio, Phased Box, & Slipcase.

Protect prints and books in elegant clamshell presentation boxes. Day 1: Students will construct a full cloth clamshell box from a provided template. Day 2: Students will design and construct a custom clamshell to their own specifications and using their own materials if they choose.

If you’ve been seeking an interesting and elegant way to house your book and paper structures or you’re just looking for a beautiful, non-traditional box for storing things, this workshop is your answer. Spend a day learning to construct a charming and functional hatch-top box with a bottom drawer.

Tinker with analog design and produce a small edition with your personal aesthetic imprinted throughout the book. In addition to the scheduled class meetings, students may use open studio time to fully develop and implement decorative type in a small edition of excerpts from a classic text. You’ll design your book’s cover in addition to the decorations throughout the text.

In this workshop, students will learn a few basic embroidery techniques that are best for decorating leather, ways to transfer a design, and prep the leather for covering. In addition to these simple embroidery stitches, demonstrations will also cover ways of adding texture and depth to a design by incorporating onlays and other decorative techniques. Students will use these techniques to design and embroider a simple cover for a miniature blank book.

In this week-long workshop, students will learn the most important aspect of finishing in bookbinding: titling books by hand.

Demystify the details of glorious headbands in this short course.

Do you love the alchemy of printed words and images that mix and grow with the turning of pages? Do the complex layers of meaning that can arise within a book fascinate you? If so, the Artists’ Book is a medium worthy of your exploration. Begin to delve into this rich and expanding format in this one-day class that introduces the history, basic structures, and an overview of the practices used by book artists. Bring your own quotes, short poems, or images and craft a book during the day to get a taste of the joy that is the making of Artists’ Books.

Learn basic bookbinding structures and stitches that every book artist should know in this three-hour workshop. If you’ve ever been curious about how to make a book, Introduction to Bookbinding is the place to start. One workshop, five booklets!

Learn basic bookbinding structures and stitches that every book artist should know in this three-hour workshop. If you’ve ever been curious about how to make a book, Introduction to Bookbinding is the place to start. One workshop, five booklets!

Learn basic bookbinding structures and stitches that every book artist should know in this three-hour workshop. If you’ve ever been curious about how to make a book, Introduction to Bookbinding is the place to start. One workshop, five booklets!

Learn basic bookbinding structures and stitches that every book artist should know in this three-hour workshop. If you’ve ever been curious about how to make a book, Introduction to Bookbinding is the place to start. One workshop, five booklets!

Learn basic bookbinding structures and stitches that every book artist should know in this three-hour workshop. If you’ve ever been curious about how to make a book, Introduction to Bookbinding is the place to start. One workshop, five booklets!

Learn basic bookbinding structures and stitches that every book artist should know in this three-hour workshop. If you’ve ever been curious about how to make a book, Introduction to Bookbinding is the place to start. One workshop, five booklets!

If you're familiar with "book arts basic concepts" but not quite ready to jump into SFCB's Bookbinding Core series, this is the class for you! In this four hour class, students will build basic bookbinding skills with a focus on sewing multiple signature bindings.

This extension of our popular Introduction to Western Marbling workshop will help students take their marbling skills to the next level as they learn to marble on fabric that can be used for covering books and boxes.

Learn the basics of pochoir, a stenciling technique that is great for editioning and book art. Pochoir will help you add color and depth to your projects.

Inspired by Sonia Delaunay’s magnificent imagery in La Prose du Transsibérien, you will learn stencil techniques à la française using aluminum plates, French pochoir brushes, and gouache.

In this introductory class, student will gain a basic understanding of the history, techniques, tools, and styles of European marbling.

This workshop will introduce students to an intriguing historical structure referred to as the Box Binding. This early bookbinding structure, flourished from the 8th-12th centuries throughout the Islamic world.

Looking for a dynamic new artists' book structure? Explore the unique capabilities and three-dimensional movement of the flag book—a structure composed of crisscrossing “flags” or small pages attached to an accordion-folded spine.

After Orientation to Leather, take the plunge into the world of leather bookbinding with Leather Core 1. In this 3-day workshop students will refine their leather working skills while making a book that advances the skills learned in Bookbinding Core 4.

Learn the basics of letterpress printing and analog design as you create and bind simple notebooks to gift or save.

This marbling lab takes the art of traditional paper marbling to a new level by introducing metallics to the pigments normally used and experimenting with over-marbling techniques. The shining hues of copper, silver, bronze, gold and pearl will transform a sheet of paper into an iridescent wonder.

This class will introduce a range of techniques that can be used in repairing the many kinds of moveable books, including books with slots and tabs, pivots and joints, carousel books and more.

Evening Open Studio is an opportunity, for those who qualify to work on their own projects with an experienced instructor on hand.

Evening Open Studio is an opportunity, for those who qualify to work on their own projects with an experienced instructor on hand.

Weekend Open Studio is an opportunity, for those who qualify to work on their own projects with an experienced instructor on hand.

This introduction to the secondary track in leatherwork for bookbinding helps students cross the frontier of those remote and mysterious tools and techniques commonly used in leather bookbinding today.

This class will introduce you to the many techniques that were traditionally used to line materials for bookbinding.

Explore the joys of making your own historical decorated papers, then experiment with contemporary designs and inventive techniques.

Discover how to combine the simple structure of an accordion book with the playful elements of pop-ups and collage. Here's the opportunity to combine content and form to communicate your unique vision.

Hey you, finicky readers out there! Tired of having to wrestle with your beloved books as you read them? This class is for you. In this workshop, we will take a paperback book and transform it into something more durable and easier to flex and open.

Seventeenth century England was the age of revolution, and the age of the pamphlet. Whether incendiary, radical or politically contentious, treaties published in this format were published in their millions. This new workshop from Dominic will teach you how to make an authentic binding from the period. Working on a facsimile of a historical text, we will reproduce a handsome ‘pastiche’ binding sympathetic with the time.

Discover how to make a stab binding book that can become a unique travel journal to take on trips and vacations. In this class you will find out how to fold and bind a variety of decorative papers to create a book that can be used to jot down notes, sketches and bright ideas while you’re travelling.

Learn the techniques involved in making beautiful inked, graphite, and gilt edges in this workshop.