Book Cartography, CFPR, UWE Bristol

I try to do a CPD Course every year at CFPR (Centre for Fine Print Research), UWE Bristol.  Some years I can’t decide which course to do and I have done two. I realised when writing my last post about Broadside Ballads that I also did this course in 2018.

This is the full description of the course which was led by Guy Begbie:

Book Cartography: Using the Map as an Artistic Strategy Within Book Structures
During this two-day course the participants will have the opportunity to make soft back and hardback books that use re-configured & found map material as content. The course will also address the conceptual appropriation of a range of mapping strategies and how they can be used and applied innovatively within the book as a device to connect visual reading to a spatial experience of place.

I made two Book Structures on this Course – a Book using cut up images from old Maps and a Sewn Through the Spine Binding.

We were shown various ways of folding the paper so we could incorporate a folded Map into the Sewn Through the Spine Binding.

I think this Binding is called the Twist – I hope I am able to do it again. I usually make a practice one after the Course (while it’s still fresh in my mind) and make my own notes – I didn’t do that this time.

With the Book below, we also cut circular holes in the pages and used various ways of folding and layering so you could see through pages.  We were also shown a Circular Fastening for the front of the book and I chose to use a piece of an old Map to embellish it. I used a Pamphlet stitch to bind it but I make a mistake and as you an see it is not exactly on the spine. I thought that the book wouldn’t work but Guy showed me a few possible ways to resolve this. He is very good at solving mistakes and always seems to come up some sort of ingenious solution to ‘rescue’ Books – when I was sure I would have to start from scratch.