Techniques / Binding
Saddle Stitch
The workhorse binding: folded sheets stapled through the spine's fold. Flat-opening, economical from 8 to 64 pages, and far more expressive than its office-printer reputation.
Ours can go standard or strange: black staples on colored stock (a house favorite), covers in kraft or metallic paper, self-covers for the honest zine look, French folds for double-thickness pages. Saddle stitch is the right call for booklets, programs, zines, and short magazines, anything that needs to open flat and ship light.
Page counts must be multiples of 4, and past ~64 pages the piece wants perfect binding instead. We'll tell you which side of the line you're on.
Make the staple a statement
The stitch itself can carry design: black staples on colored stock read instantly intentional, and loop staples turn a program into a binder-ready piece. Prefer thread to wire? Singer sewing stitches the same formats with visible colored thread: staples' more interesting cousin.
Saddle stitch samples
FAQ
Why must pages come in multiples of 4?
Each folded sheet yields four pages: that's the geometry of the fold. We'll help you plan the flatplan so nothing gets padded.
How many pages can saddle stitch hold?
Comfortably 8 to 64. Past that, the piece creeps and wants perfect binding: we'll tell you which side of the line you're on.
Do the booklets open flat?
Yes. Flat-opening is saddle stitch's superpower, which is why programs and lookbooks love it.
Can the staples be black?
A house favorite: black staples on colored or kraft stock. The hardware becomes part of the design.