Why Book Design & Production Don’t Always Speak the Same Language

A customer recently asked for a book that would open flat, making thread-sewn binding the natural recommendation over a glued spine. They also wanted two different materials interspersed throughout the text. This is straightforward with a glue-bound book, but requires more planning when the pages are arranged into sections for thread sewing.

To create a lay-flat book with materials interspersed, we planned the pagination around the sewn sections. We worked with the customer to determine where each material would appear and finalise the artwork accordingly, ensuring the different stocks fell in the correct positions once the sections were folded for thread sewing.

We appreciate that not everyone is familiar with technical terms, so we try to make job specifications customer-friendly. Here, the book cover featured a blind emboss, without foil or ink, while the sewing used white thread that would show in the centre spread of each folded section. We developed the specification carefully to ensure the customer knew exactly what they were getting.

For the book cover, we used Bright Red Colorplan card, with the inner pages alternating between Colorplan Bright Red and Munken Rough Kristall True White. The result was a fantastic-looking book that the customer loved, and we thoroughly enjoyed making it.