The Art of Bookbinding in the Digital Age

I’m a girl who has never outgrown her love for books. Despite the digital age, I feel nothing can replace the smell of old books with their yellowing pages.

For years, being a bibliophile meant scouring through every bookstore that I come across both here and abroad. I like getting into the old, heavy stuff and I also like working with my hands and it’s why being a bookbinder practically seems to feet.

These days, it seems like a rarity to work with one hand, particularly to create something from scratch. But, it’s exactly what makes a good book and for me, it still works.

In the spring of 2017, I was finishing up my degree in literature and one of my roommates had this old but beautiful leather-bound book on her drawer and told me where she got the bookbinding services in Singapore. So, for a year I would take the train and drop off a few books for binding every now and then.

But, when I was packing to leave for my hometown, I brought one last project to the binder. By that time, I was so hooked and there’s no way I would stop doing it even if it meant getting a binding machine for myself.

So, that’s what I did and bought myself my first binder. It was a GBC CombBind 80 Binder from Acco Brands Asia, a world-leading supplier of binding machines here in Singapore and abroad.

GBC CombBind 80 is a binder ideal for beginners like me who needs occasional binding requirements. It punches up to 8 sheets at a time and binds up to 145 A4 sheets using 16mm spines. What I like about this product is that it’s lightweight and compact, the qualities that make it ideal for use anytime, anywhere - not to mention, it’s easy to store when not in use.

If you ask me when did I learn how to bind, it’s actually during some of the afternoons I spent on the bookbinding shop. Because I was already an established client at the shop, they didn’t mind me staying there for a while and they even allowed me to learn by watching and eventually by doing the binding myself. It’s one of the best experiences of my life and was what pushed me to get a binder on my own.

The bookbinding process can be so violent at first and I can only imagine how harder it could get during the old times when you have to manually sew the books together and without any machine like my GBC CombBind.

But, of course, I thought the results of manual and machine binding would just be as equally beautiful and precious - and like I said, despite the advancements in technology, bookbinding will never get old and here’s me, an old soul trapped in the 21st century.