BOOKBINDING AWARDS Archivist, Hannah Dunmow
ANNUAL COMPETITION
T
he Company continues to support the endangered craft of hand bookbinding by commissioning fine bindings from established bookbinders and by funding prizes in the Open Choice category of the Designer Bookbinders’ Competition. The Competition is organised by Designer Bookbinders – one of the foremost societies devoted to the craft of fine bookbinding, founded more than 50 years ago – and co-sponsored by The Folio Society. Entry is open to all binders (except DB Fellows) who are resident in the UK at the time of completing their binding. Every entrant must bind the appointed book (this year it was Ray Bradbury’s The
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THE CLOTHWORKER | SPRING 2019
Illustrated Man), but can also submit open-choice books and artist’s books as a secondary entry. The Clothworkers’ Company provides two prizes in the Open Choice Book category, where binders choose their own titles to bind. This category consistently attracts high quality
designs. This year the first-prize winner also won three other awards, and between them both Clothworker prize winners have won seven Clothworker Awards in recent years! First prize was awarded to Yuko Matsuno for her miniature binding (76 x 60 x 25 mm) of The Island: An Amsterdam Saga by Geert Mak [Stichting Handboekbinden, The Hague: 2016]. It is bound in full red goatskin, with hand ink-dotted doublures, endpapers and edges. The cover has swingable ladybirds (made from polymer clay, covered in goatskin and painted with acrylic) attached to it with gold-filled headpins. The title is tooled in dark brown on goatskin inlays underneath the ladybirds. The whole volume is
