Techniques / Binding
Custom Binding
When the standard bindings aren't the point, the binding becomes the design. This is the drawer of everything else: wire-o and spiral coils, screw posts, exposed and coptic sewing, elastic closures, and one-off structures engineered for a single project.
Wire-o and spiral lie dead flat and fold back on themselves — the working-document bindings, elevated with colored coils and heavy covers. Screw posts make swatch books and portfolios that can be re-opened and updated. Exposed sewing shows the craft on the spine. And when a client's brief needs a structure that doesn't have a name yet, we prototype until it does.
Every custom bind pairs with the rest of the shop — foil covers, die-cut pages, specialty stocks. Start with what the object needs to do; we'll find the spine for it.
The menu, so far
- Wire-o & spiral — lies dead flat and folds back on itself; colored coils turn hardware into design.
- Screw posts — openable and updatable; the swatch-book and portfolio binding.
- Exposed & coptic sewing — thread on display, the craft as the cover story.
- Grommets, rings & elastic — menus, field guides, and pieces built to survive handling.
Prototype first
Custom structures get prototyped before they get produced: a physical dummy in the actual stock, so the weight, the swing, and the stack are proven before the run. And a custom bind inherits the whole shop — foil covers, die-cut pages, specialty papers — so the structure and the finishing arrive as one object, not an assembly of compromises.
Custom binding samples
FAQ
Can you invent a binding that doesn't exist?
That's this page's whole job. Bring the behavior you need — lies flat, updates, hangs on a wall, survives a kitchen — and we'll engineer a spine for it, prototype included.
Which bindings lie completely flat?
Wire-o, spiral, and ring bindings fold dead flat and back on themselves. Sewn structures relax flat; perfect binding doesn't.
Can pages be swapped later?
Screw posts and rings are made for it — portfolios and swatch books that update instead of reprinting.
Is there a minimum run?
No hard minimum — one-off dummies and short editions are normal here.