Designer Bookbinders International Bookbinding Competition Winners for 2009

Designer Bookbinders has announced the winners of its International Bookbinding Competition 2009.

Binders from around the world were invited to enter the event, which was organized in conjunction with the Bodleian Library. An exhibition of selected competition entries is being shown alongside the Bodleian’s own exhibition An Artful Craft - Fine and Historic Bookbindings from the Broxbourne Library and Other Collections.

Designer Bookbinders International Bookbinding Competition 2009 featured two prizes awarded in honor of Sir Paul Getty KBE (1932-2003). Sir Paul Getty was one of the greatest book collectors of his era and was a passionate advocate for the art and craft of bookbinding.

1st Prize was awarded to Alain Taral (France):

Binding made of pear wood covered by Karelian birch veneer. Decoration of "fusion" marquetry made of many different precious wood veneers including palm tree, yew, bubinga, lati, planetree, amboina, elm burrs, thuya and faiera. Wooden joints with steel axis. Suede flyleaves. Marquetery title. Wooden slipcase covered by Karelian birch veneer. Water comes to us from rocks, from mother earth, but also from clouds, sometimes from tears... at the beginning just a few drops that then come together to form streams and lakes.

2nd Prize was awarded to Jenni Grey (UK):

The pages have been divided into two bindings 'Water' and 'Waterborn'. Machine embroidered grey Dypion-style fabric and airbrushed endpapers feature on both bindings. In 'Water', sterling silver wire fixings and etched acrylic, which creates shadows on the endpapers, are the predominant materials. The fold out container incorporates information about both books and has shell button fastenings. The design was inspired by the light and shade created by sun and clouds on the surface of the sea, and echoing the marbling forms in the text.

The Incline Press Award GBP was awarded to Marja Wilgenkamp (Netherlands) was presented by the publishers of A Selection of Poems on the Theme of Water (Incline Press, Oldham, UK. 2008) to the binder whose design most reflected their ideal for a trade edition of the book:


Mark Cockram of Studio 5 BookArts crafted a stunning trade binding for Water that must be seen:


The design is based on the Golden Temple in Kyoto. Rain Falling on the decorative carp in the surrounding lake. The leather was hand dyed with over 1,500 individual impressions. The surface of the leather was then worked with a fine wire wool, leaving the gold in the impressions ( Hand Tooled ) and residue of the gold left in place to enhance the ripple effect. Small inlays in the boards and doublers echo the water drop on the end papers.

Full list of winners and selected bookbinders here.