Monthly Archives: June 2012

Portfolios, for people who still find a need for paper

Carrying real paper documents these days seems hopelessly old-fashioned, but there are times when nothing else will do.  Sending someone a resume doesn’t need a stamp, but when you are sitting in a job interview, I’m not sure that handing out flash drives to all the participants is the way to go.  So in the hopes that someone, somewhere still carries paper and wants to make a statement at the same time, I’ve designed some portfolios that fit standard 8.5×11 letter paper.

I posted the prototype a few weeks ago and last week I made the first batch.  I forgot to photograph them before I put on their shiny packaging, so please excuse the shiny spots! Here they all are:

The outside paper and the side strips are all my hand-marbled paper, but I found that using marbled paper on the inside also was just too much, so I’ve used commercial, printed papers there.

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Notepad Covers Join the Party!

A few posts ago, before being distracted by the Clay books, I was playing around with designs for portfolios and notepad covers. Last week I got down to business and lined up the materials for four of the notepad covers.  I finished three of them, but not the fourth.  I was unhappy with the choices I had for the spine of that book.  I had a bit of the color of bookcloth I wanted to use, but not enough. Of course, instead of just gong with a lesser choice, I decided to order more.  My rationale was that I had hardly any brown bookcloth left and I’d need it for other projects anyway. The result was that for want of a 3″x12″ strip, I ordered three yards (brown, black and cream) and some headbands that I needed.  I try my best to keep bookbinding supply companies in business!

Here are the three finished notepads.

 

Below is a gallery of  the three notepads with various views.

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Filed under Marbled Paper, Notebooks

Finished Books

I finished the books that I had started in the last post.  No major disasters and I’m happy with the results.  You can see the complete process in photos on this page.

Here are the completed books.

Finished Books

The three in the back row are the ones that have Clay themes.  The first is “Lady Luck”, for the duet that Clay and Dee Snider did of “Luck Be a Lady Tonight.”  It has an Italian paper with antique playing cards on the covers and endpapers that I hand-marbled.

Lady Luck

 

Lady Luck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book with title and endpapers.

 

 

 

The second book was a tribute to the version of “Lean on Me” that Clay sang on the finale.

Always Tomorrow

I titled it “Always Tomorrow” for the spirit of always going toward the next thing.  I think the pattern on the marbled covers reflects  upward aspirations.

Always Tomorrow

The endpapers are made from some wonderful Italian decorative paper that shows all the months of the year with typical activities for each month in various Italian towns.

The last book has a cover of papyrus, so I had to give it a a desert theme.  Of course,  papyrus actually grows along rivers, but I associate it with desert countries. The only song I could think of was “Get Here” which has the line “…cross the desert …” so that gave me the title for the book.  The endpapers are a yellow and brown swirl pattern that reminds me a sandstorms and deserts.

So this was a good week for me.  Now I think I’ll move on to those portfolios and notebooks I was playing with in my last post.

 

 

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