Designing and creating contemporary bindings, competing in bookbindingcontests and participating in exhibitions is an important aspect of bookbinding.
When designing and creating an artbinding you try to push the limits of the used materials, bindingmethods and the decoration techniques as well as you push yourself beyond your own limits. This is a way of working which stands in total contrast with the limitation of the traditional way of bookbinding.
The binding, also the artbinding, has to serve in the first place as a protector of the book, and the decoration or the designer must not take the upper-hand on the content of the whole.
The choice of the book which is to be bound, can be a good text, beautifully illustrated in a limited and numbered edition or a unique, handwritten copy.
The challenge when entering a bookbinding competition is to get your book to stand out from the many other competitors and to grasp the attention of the judges.
The ideal jury consists of a collectiontrustee, a bookbinder and a sculpting artist who is familiar with the bookbindingtrade.
The collectiontrustee should maintain the critical view on what is alive in the world of contemporary bookbinding today.
Having a binder in the jury is obvious, the sculpting artist advises his collegue jurymembers when the design is the matter of discussion.
Through the years our bindings have earned a place in the collections of both bibliophiles and institutes.
