When binding the book it was important to cut all the pages down so they lined up perfectly when bound. I used a guillotine and craft knife to achieve accurate results, however in industry machines like the electric guillotine would do this. Due to the paper being slightly different sizes when going into the printer I couldn't use the electric guillotine until later on in the process otherwise the pages in the book would have been badly aligned.
Once the pages were cut down and stacked together it became apparent that there were irregularities between the pages so i used the electric guillotine in the traditional print room to cut down the pages to exactly equal sizes making it easier when it came to glueing the spine.
Once the pages were all exactly the same I clipped them together with a bulldog clip, placed them into a press and used scrim and glue to securely bind the pages.
If I was producing the book professionally in industry as part of a large print run, I would use a thermal binder or a hot melt binding machine, for neat durable results every time. However due to the college's lack of these resources scrim and PVA glue gave the most similar result to these machines.
Next I moved on to making the external cover. The pattern was to be foiled and the Text was to be screen printed due to further limitations of the college's resources.
Ideally in industry the type would be foiled as well however due to the foil not being able to stick to the glue neatly at this point size in college I opted for metallic ink instead to give a similar effect on the smaller type as foiling might have.
I had to foil the cover first before screen printing as if the process was done the other way round, the ink from the screen print would turn tacky in the heat press and stick to the paper, ruining the cover.
When it came to binding I opted to use some bright neon orange / red paper to protect the first page of the publication and to also add another bold and vibrant element to the book which complimented the foiling on the front cover and also stands out to a younger demographic.
When it came to putting all the elements together I used double sided tape to attach the front cover to the inside pages of the publication. Tape rather than traditional glue prevented any buckling of the paper which the glue may have caused. I used the same method when attaching the outer cover, ensuring the title of the spine was perfectly aligned in the centre.
This was successful and came out exactly how I wanted it.
Sadly when it came to reading the pages it appeared I had trimmed off too much excess scrim and cut away some of the paper which caused the pages to come apart when I opened the book to read. This is really frustrating however due to the stage of the process this happened and the cost and time it would take to bind a new book, it is not feasible to make another one. In industry using a hot melt binding machine would eliminate the need for scrim anyway and this would not have happened.
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