The Association of Book Crafts’ 2026 Print + Bind project paired printers and binders in a collaborative exchange. Each printer produced an edition of alphabet-themed prints that were collated and sent to a binder who created two books, keeping one and returning the other to their designated printer. For this project I was paired with printer – Australian writer, designer, academic, book artist and long-time friend, Caren Florance from New South Wales.
As both a printer and a binder, I have always enjoyed the conversation that can occur between the printed page and its eventual structure. Receiving the collated prints prompted the familiar question: what form should this book take?
During a series of workshops with Lori Sauer, she showed me her copy of Plat dessus, plat dessous, a publication produced for the international exhibition Reliures à Structure Croisée held in Paris in 1996. I was immediately captivated. Although I briefly considered buying a copy for myself, the few available were prohibitively expensive, so I instead arranged to view the Bodleian Library’s copy during a visit to Oxford. Reading Carmencho Arregui’s account of the development of the cross-structure binding, together with Sün Evrard’s reflections on her own interpretation of the form, proved transformative. Arregui’s cross-structure binding, and the many ways it has since been explored by others, has dominated my practice this year as I have tried to understand the possibilities inherent in the structure.
What appeals to me is the openness of the structure. Unlike many traditional bindings, the engineering is not hidden. The sewing and structural elements become part of the visual language of the book. It is a binding that invites curiosity, revealing how the book is made while still protecting and presenting its contents.
