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.

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.

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.

A book structure with personality built into the cover, buttonhole books allow for exposed sewing and decorative cuts that give a window from the outside in.

The four class Cylinder Core Certificate Program allows students to move quickly through the press basics while also addressing relief printing in general. After this class students are qualified to rent press time as well as move on to more advanced classes and techniques.

Build your letterpress skills: learn advanced justification, typesetting, and composition. Put it all together to print a broadside of your own design.

Design and aesthetic. Increase your letterpress versatility: learn to set up the press, refine you registration skills, and run an edition. Learn more about packing, roller height, and make-ready. Come ready to run an edition of your own small poster!

Bring digital back into analog in this final core course and learn to print from photopolymer plates. Apply your letterpress skills to artwork created digitally to make fantastic plates for printing. Walk away with a stack of stationery printed from polymer plates.

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.

The right paper loves to be folded, creased and bound, and this course is an integrated exploration of the two pleasures of accordions and folds, and where they intersect. Create five books during this fun-filled session, that covers a wide range of possibilities for these structures.

Learn how to properly maintain a hand-fed Cylinder Proof Press as well as how to adjust it so that it prints beautifully.

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.

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.

If you're looking to begin making artists' books or adding content to existing books, color theory is a great place to start. Through a series of hands-on exercises, this course covers the basics of color theory and acrylic techniques that are essential for artists working in any medium.

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.

This class introduces the process, the materials, the machines, and the satisfaction of printing by hand on a Cylinder proof press.

This class introduces the process, the materials, the machines, and the satisfaction of printing by hand on a Cylinder proof press.

This 4-hour version of our popular Introduction to Letterpress class introduces the process, the materials, the machines, and the satisfaction of printing by hand on a Cylinder proof press with more hands-on time for students to work with typesetting and printing. Come play with us!

This 4-hour version of our popular Introduction to Letterpress class introduces the process, the materials, the machines, and the satisfaction of printing by hand on a Cylinder proof press with more hands-on time for students to work with typesetting and printing. Come play with us!

Gather your drawings and get ready to transfer your imagery into scratchboard illustration. Learn the basics of this accessible direct engraving technique in this one-day workshop.

Learn the ins-and-outs of the Risograph, a marriage of silkscreen meeting photocopier. In this class you’ll create and edition print a 2-4 color poster.

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

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

Championed by conservator/bookbinder Carmencho Arregui, this book structure can easily be made in a few hours – the perfect thing if you’re interested in making a gift for a friend or a new sketchbook/journal for yourself!

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.

Gain exposure to letterpress and typesetting while making personalized note-card stationery.

Fold a little paper, decorate it with your own drawings, use a blade for cutting, and a glue-stick to piece it all together – et voila, a miniature pop-up theatre!

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.

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.

Evening 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.

Have you been dreaming of honing your marbling skills but are unsure of doing it on your own? This workshop will allow you to do just that! Guided by Italian marbler Pietro Accardi, students will have a day to practice techniques learned in SFCB’s Introduction to Marbling workshops and leave with a stack of their own marbled paper.

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

Learn the fundamentals of digital design for letterpress! Students will learn key skills for software applications like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. We will explore best practices for handling photographic and vector images as well as setting digital type for photopolymer plate production.

A great class for beginners, this album can also be made on the kitchen table with a few tools. This is a great book structure for artists and photographers who want to display their work in a beautiful, hand-made book.

Explore the complexities of this challenging area of book restoration.

Get your pen, ink, and paper together and strengthen your writing with this upright cursive hand. Learn the basics of constructing the Ronde script that influences our present day handwriting and lettering design. Perfect for making place cards, writing letters, or journaling.

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.

Think outside the standard box! In this workshop students will learn to make several different shaped boxes from various paper materials and custom templates.

In this class students will learn how to combine the basic structure of a star book with the theatrical 3D effects of a tunnel book. Through various methods they will discover how build a mobile with a playful sense of narrative.

Make your own meditation scroll, a unique design and process developed by the instructor. There will be a brief history of the scroll and an introduction to focused awareness and stillness in the making of art.

Learn to make an adorable library of books small enough to fit in your pocket! Share your love of books by creating a set of tiny tomes to wear and share.