The Center for the Book: Drum-Leaf Book Demonstration

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Age Group:

Teen, Adult
Registration for this event will be open from June 5, 2025 @ 5:30pm to June 24, 2025 @ 5:30pm.

Program Description

Event Details

Learn how to make a handmade book using the drum-leaf method from the University of Iowa’s Center for the Book. Participants will make two books to take home from letter- or legal-sized papers and learn simple cover variants. 

About Drum-Leaf Books:

Although it is a very simple structure, the drum-leaf binding offers wide-ranging possibilities for the presentation of visual and written information. Comprised of any number of individual folios, the structure allows artists to work across entire page spreads, without a gutter or sewing thread or staples breaking up the imagery. The drum-leaf is adaptable for a wide variety of printing or hand-drawn techniques, materials, and cover styles. It's an ideal structure for printing books at home and requires no complex pagination or page imposition. The structure also uses very little liquid adhesive (and can be made with none at all!), minimizing messiness and paper wrinkling and making the book very quick and easy to assemble.

About the Center for the Book:

The Center for the Book is an innovative arts and research program dedicated to the past, present, and future of the book. The Center pursues a distinctive mission, integrating practice in the art of the book with a study of the book in society. We offer curricula in the arts of printing, binding, paper-making, and calligraphy, in the history and culture of books as a field of study, and in the expressive power of the book form. The Center also supports an active program of visiting lectures and workshops with renowned book scholars and artists. 

Craig Kelchen is the Studio Manager and Adjunct Instructor in Printing and Bookbinding at The Center for the Book.

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