Here at Bookmobile, we’ve been doing more and more artists book printing, and one that we recently produced is Westside Makers. It’s a very cool publication created by the resident makers of Covington, which is in northern Kentucky. Covington is a neighborhood of makers, including bakers, gardeners, painters, musicians, and more.
Made possible through a grant from The Center for Great Neighborhoods, Westside Makers features 30 makers from the Covington neighborhood. The artist Calcagno Cullen interviewed and photographed the makers at work, and the book also includes DIY recipes and instructions (like how to grow potatoes in tires). From Cal,
The Westside Maker’s project wouldn’t have been nearly as successful without the high quality and professional printing by Bookmobile. The resulting publication is a great way to share and market the growing community that the book encompasses, lasting much longer than the one day event that it helped promote. As an artist with a specific vision for how this book should look and feel, I was so pleased to find Bookmobile. They were able to print and deliver exactly what I had in mind, even on a tight deadline!
The Artists Book
Westside Makers is a square trim size, 9″ x 9″. The interior printed full color, 94 pages on our 70-lb. matte white stock with interior bleeds. We perfect bound the book and used our PUR binder—a PUR glue is a better fit for a coated paper stock and produces a stronger and more flexible binding.
The cover for Westside Makers is a little different from most of our paperback books. There’s no printing on the cover, and the cover stock is actually Rainbow antique material we use for hardcover cases. Cal chose the color sand. The weight is a little lighter than a typical paperback cover, but it’s a nice overall feel with the thinner and square book. Best of all, the front cover features a black foil stamp of the Westside Makers logo and the title.
The Book Launch
The book was launched at a “meet the makers field day” on May 21 at a local park. There were stations throughout the park where the artists and makers demonstrated their crafts, and maps were handed out so visitors could go on a walking tour of the neighborhood and see the makers in their studios, gardens, or kitchens.
Why Bookmobile for an Artists Book Printing?
Bookmobile provides custom book manufacturing; no cookie-cutter templates or trim sizes to adhere to here. We produce everything in house, and we only produce books. So the collected know-how of our experienced staff goes into every book we produce. Our minimum run is 25 copies—we could not maintain our high-quality standards and breadth of options if we were only printing one copy of a book. From you, we require print-ready PDF files; our Support page will guide you on file prep and our color printing parameters. We provide paperback or hardcover binding, and black-and-white or color interiors (with the option to do a black-and-white interior with color inserts to save on cost). We can produce about any trim size up to 12″ square, landscape or portrait. We also provide many bells and whistles, like French flaps, foil stamping, and embossing or debossing. Browse our Gallery for inspiration, and check out our full list of options too.
Interested in what Bookmobile can do for you? Contact me!