I recently did a video about face printed books that are printed by a printer on an offset or digital press. This video describes the process of printing the head and/or face and/or the foot of a finished bound book after the book is bound. The books can be either perfect bound or hard/case bound.
The “printing” is done first by die cutting a “stencil” of a pattern or logo or words. The “stencil” is placed over the area to be printed and the outer surface is either spray painted or the “ink” is applied with a roller. There are literally scores of colours to choose from, the range of patterns and sizes and type fonts are endless. Book “edge painting” is much more expensive than press printing the edge copy or patterns but…edge “printing” is much more precise, detailed, colourful, vivid and memorable than press sheet print “edging.”
What is Japanese Binding?
A quick online search of Japanese binding results in finding dozens of tutorials of Do It Yourself Japanese Binding. There are as many as 12 binding styles that are similar to Japanese binding, like Coptic binding, Belgian binding etc. The Japanese style is by far the most common and, also important, the least expensive! While you might find other versions of exposed spine binding online, they’ll cost you 7 or 8 times what our price would be for Japanese binding.
That being said, while I said our style of Japanese binding is cheaper than other similar styles, I didn’t say it was cheap! Our price for 1,000 books that you send to us already perfect bound measuring 6” x 9” at ½” thick would be $3.79 each!
To see how we construct a Japanese bound book, take a look at the diagram below.
Features
- Can have foldouts
- Can be step cut
- Can have 1 or 2 piece covers
- Any size and thickness
- Hard or soft covers
- Exposed or covered spine
- Large selection of string colours
Benefits
Unlike perfect bound books, this style can hold together mixed or coated sheets. The kind of paper doesn’t really matter, so if you’re looking to mix and match, this could be a great option!