Ep. 251: Yo Yamazaki and A Template

Bookbinder of the Week: （今週の製本者)

Yo Yamazaki (山崎曜)

Mr Yamazaki is a Tokyo bookbinder who has traveled the world teaching book-making and has won prizes, had many exhibitions of his work, displayed in galleries, and worked for a time in advertising. There’s a Vimeo video available to watch his unique work style but, on top of all that, he’s an excellent teacher. Check out his website at yoyamazaki.jp 

Bookbinding ( 手作り製本) 

This is an A5-size schedule with 100 pages. It contains two yearly calendars for 2021 and 2022; it has 13 monthly calendars from April to April; it has a weekly calendar for the same period.

If requested by the customer, I can insert 13 photos of the customer’s choosing or leave them blank. The endpapers for the one on the right is a map of the city where the customer lives; the endpapers on the right are Colorful! Like this one:

This was the first book I used my template cover builder on. I made a paper replica of an A5 cover for a book with 100 pages. Just like this book. I worked on it until it fit the book nicely. I prayed and then built the real book cover and yes! The cover fit it! I used the same template on the second book and it fit well as well. It relieved me of much stress (and diminished my skill in book cover making, some might say; and probably be right, but I’m all for reducing stress levels in my workshop.)

 

Fiction (作り話 • フィクション)

I wrote this tale many moons ago but only recently discovered that I don't have what is currently called a Hard Copy, i.e. a Real Book. So I made one. Two. I made two.

It is, depending on the size of the book, about 250 pages of knowledge, sex, drugs, marriage, divorce, and art. 
Rie the protagonist gets fired from her waitressing job, marries a guy on the rebound, meets one of his artsy-friends, and starts working for him. Her husband objects, she meets a printer. And falls in love... Oh, ain’t that sweet? Yes, yes, it is.

It’s a typographical love story because the other protagonist, Harvey, is the printer – a fine letterpress printer – who creates one-off books, including one of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy.