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In collaboration with CollectPlus, who kindly helped produce this video!

Two things I learned from my graphic design degree at CSM: how to write a thousand words between Liverpool Street and Holborn, and how the triangle shape can be so fresh and so friggin’ hipster at the same time. Bookbinding, sadly was one of the workshops that I managed to put off as acting Admiral Webdesign sitting on my high-horse that only insisted on pulling the Live Online broadband-a-wagon. I thought all I needed was a Wacom tablet and a keen eye for pixels, and my hands would ever be clean of ink or glue. But in my first year, I met Ellen – a fellow flâneur, for those who remember – a deft hand in all things hand-crafted, and a keen collector of rare paper and sketchbooks.

Over one bleary-eyed all-nighter at her house, she effortlessly demonstrated how to bind a book while fixing a midnight snack, and I’ve been putting some easy tools to good use and making my own sketchbooks ever since. Granted of course, I had filled most of mine with wireframing scribbles, hex codes and the occasional existential babble of a 22-year-old, but some of those notebooks I remember using until the book tape wore off. So, here’s a tutorial on bookbinding, as quick and simple as Ellen first taught me. I partnered up with CollectPlus, a nifty service I use and abuse often – especially when I rock up to the nearest corner shop looking like a hot mess with not a smear of make-up on and smelling of cheesy Dorito’s, demanding for my box of stationery. I wish I could’ve gotten Ellen herself to explain things better, but you’ll have to do with me for now; she’s currently illustrating a book on Autism, while I’m picking my nose making fart jokes (aka fashion-girl noise like ‘omg shoes‘).