A global wedding captured in a map book

A couple living in Australia. The bride from the U.K. And a wedding in Bali, Indonesia. If ever there was a wedding guest book fit for a map design, this was the one.

For this international destination wedding, I ultimately decided to use a map print paper from Paper Source for their book. It has a vintage map feel that Laura liked. And I made sure to include all of this couple's important places across the covers.

Little books that fit in an envelope

As I was preparing for the current Bookbinding Etsy Street Team book swap, I realized that I never shared photos from the last swap, probably because it occurred just as I was getting ready to move to Nashville. Despite the delay, the book I received from Laura of PrariePeasent is just too beautiful not to share. 

The pages of this lotus fold book were made from an old illustrated children's book about a clever mother bird protecting her children. Laura used her own handmade paper, which includes little bits of daffodil petals, for the covers. I love the sweet illustrations of the little birds, and how the ribbon that wraps around the book is reminiscent of a bird's nest. 

Interestingly enough, the book that I sent off for the swap to Katie, a bookbinder and graphic designer from Indianapolis, was made using the same origami-like construction as the book I received from Laura. The theme for this swap was to send something that "fits in an envelope,"so perhaps we both thought that these little folded books would be a good option.

The little book I made for the swap was part of a series of books made from vintage maps.  About a year ago my husband picked up a 1966 Britannica Wold Atlas for free on a trip to Baltimore. There's a place called Book Thing of Baltimore that gives away used books. But there's one catch: you can only take 150,000 free books per day, per person.

The atlas was packed with outdated, quirky data colorfully displayed on dozens of political and topographical maps from around the world. I decided to repurpose the pages of the atlas into a series of sculptural books featuring the vibrant map imagery (find them in my shop here). The books unfold in a malleable array of pages to reveal a random assortment of maps and graphics. When closed, the folds return to an orderly stack. 

Anniversaries, the traditional way

Earlier this month my husband and I celebrated our two-year wedding anniversary. We exchanged gifts made of cotton. Last year, we exchanged gifts made from paper. 

We've decided that we're going to follow the year-by-year categories of traditional wedding gifts. Since I'm a bookmaker, I was especially excited about year one's paper gifts and that's probably why we started off with the tradition. I think the themes make the gift giving so much fun. The materials give us a place to start with the gift-giving brainstorming, and then we get to come up with a contemporary idea to fit within the traditional boundaries.

Last year, Tony surprised me with a little handbound book made by Ruth Bleakley. The book features hand-drawn jellyfish illustrations, which was especially fitting because jellyfish are some of my favorite creatures and they often appear in my own artwork. (Ruth is a book artist and illustrator living in Cape Cod. To see more of her work, visit her etsy shop or her blog.)

I know I've mentioned before that my husband loves maps. (He couldn't resist getting one of the East Nashville maps at Porter Flea a few weeks ago.) So for his paper gift last year, I got him a silkscreened world map from These Are Things. We also own their map of Europe, so between all of these we have quite the map theme developing in our home decor. 

This year, the theme was cotton. Tony picked out a bird pillow for me, which is now adding a lively splash of color in our new living room. The pillow was made by Janae Easton of Platypusfile, who I met back in May at the Athens Indie Craftstravaganzaa. Each of her bird pillows is made from vibrant fabrics and a vintage button, and each one is named after an opera singer. My bird's name is Josella Ligi. 

I got my husband two cotton t-shirts from Out of Print. I settled on the To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye shirts, because I liked their designs best, they are some of our favorite classic novels, and because we read them together in high school back when we first started dating. The shirts from Out of Print are based on book cover designs, and with each shirt sale they donate a book to a community in need. 

Next year our theme will be leather. I've already got my eye on these lovely handmade leather bags...

Reconnecting with the past

One of the best parts of starting my own business has been getting to meet so many new people, from talented artists at art shows to the inspirational bookbinders of BEST.  But I've also had the chance to reconnect with people I've know for years.  This journal was commissioned by one of my high school classmates, Kendra, as a birthday gift for her sister.  (While working on this project for Kendra, I also got to hear more about her own business, Connected Healing, specializing in holistic horse healthcare.) 

This book is a 6" x 9" leather journal, bound in yellow thread using the Italian long-stitch technique.  Usually when I make smaller leather journals, like this one, I use a thin leather strap which is attached to the cover by looping it through a series of holes in the leather.  However for this large journal, I felt that the book needed a thick strap to aesthetically balance the book.  

This lead me to try a new way of attaching the strap, resulting in the double X stitching pattern.  While certainly nothing groundbreaking, I loved the extra bit of visual interest that the simple pattern brings to the book.  I wonder how it would look to continue the stitching pattern along the entire length of the strap.  I may have to try that on a future book. 

The inside of the book features colorful bits of paper from a vintage world atlas.  I selected an assortment of maps from around the globe to wrap each section of pages.  And since all of the maps I used are printed on both sides, no matter how you flip through the book you can get a little geography lesson. 

The Borders Within

This past Sunday, the newspaper where my husband and I work published a special report called The Borders Within. For my husband Tony and our good friend Chase Purdy it was the culmination of a year's worth of reporting about the growing Hispanic population in our town.

And for me, it marked the end of an incredibly busy week spent designing the six-page section. This is undoubtedly the project I am post proud of during my two years designing for The News Virginian. I'm also quite proud of the work that Tony and Chase completed with their reporting which makes this even more meaningful to me. I don't often share my graphic design work on this blog, but I wanted to make an exception for this particular project.

Click on any of the images for a closer look at the design, or view a pdf of the full section here.

One aspect of the design that came together even better than I'd expected was the map on page two. I created a map of our small town, and used it to plot different points of significance to Waynesboro's Hispanic community, like the a church offering weekly services in Spanish and a park where many people -- including former Mexican professional league players -- play fútbol. Local and regional statistics surround the map to complete the infographic.

Everything for this section was completed by Tony, Chase, and me. Reporting, writing, photography, design -- we did it all. So we all feel a real sense of ownership about this section. The photos that Tony and Chase took turned out so well, and they drive the design for the section. I was able to use a variety of large dominant photos and truly give a face to this community that is often overlooked.

We were also all excited to see that our section had been featured on Charles Apple's The Visual Side of Journalism blog. Charles had many complimentary things to say about The Borders Within, and specifically appreciated the visual appeal of the infographics, and the design of the section overall. Reading his post truly made my day, and was ceretianly a highlight after such a hectic week (and weekend) preparing for the section's publication.

And here's a bit more about the section, in Tony's words:

At its most basic, the idea behind the reporting in this section is not new. Like many reporters, we chose to explore an unfamiliar immigrant community and one that struggles with a language barrier.

But we thought we could deliver something meaningful to readers by bringing our curiosity to Waynesboro’s Hispanic community in particular — a community nestled into a small town and one that still remembers the first who came from Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, and elsewhere. They remember because those pioneers arrived not so long ago.

Because of the short time these families have lived here, we find them on the cusp of transition. As that population meets more frequently with the broader community, those unfamiliar words and nameless faces become harder to ignore, or to refuse to understand. Their needs have grown. Their successes are mounting.

We chose to approach in Spanish whenever possible, no matter how much we’d stumble. We focused on people, not politics, and the ordinary as often as the extreme.

This project first arose in fall 2009, but it might not have started without an unsolicited call and a soft threat. The caller told us to feature Kim Romero’s struggle to bring her husband Rigo back from Mexico, where he’d become mired in immigration bureaucracy. If we wouldn’t write the story, some other reporter would, the caller said.

The Romeros’ story turned from one chapter to the next just after midnight Sept. 10, when Rigo came legally into Kim’s arms at Dulles International Airport. We were there. Rigo has since gained residency through 2020.

Their story isn’t over. Nor is our work.

Tony and Chase had already won the International Perspectives award from the Associated Press Managing Editors contest for their coverage of the Romeros earlier this year, and I think that is just the beginning for the recognition they will receive for their work. Read all of the articles in The Borders Within series here.

Submit a map, win a book

I've teamed up with the Hand Drawn Map Association this month to give away five of my handmade books. Through the end of October you can win one, but there's a catch.

You've got to draw a map.

Whether it's driving directions scribbled on a sticky note, a fanciful imaginary place, or an artful illustration, the HDMA wants to collect your maps. Everyone who sends a map this month (by post, e-mail, or digital upload) will be entered into a drawing for my books. For submission details, visit the HDMA website.

A little about each book:

I've had an oversized 1966 Britannica World Atlas taking up space in my studio since winter, when my husband picked it up for free (with me in mind) at Book Thing of Baltimore. The atlas is packed with (outdated) data colorfully displayed on dozens of maps. A large portion of the book goes beyond political and topographical maps to show socio-economic trends.

For the covers of this small, Coptic-bound journal I chose a birth rate map. I was especially inspired by the colors, which I carried through to the binding and the varied progression of paper colors inside.

Off the bat, I knew I'd also have to put to good use the map key. As you can see above, it's clipped and tucked into the inside front cover.

The giveaway features two other binding styles, including these concertinas. I made the first from a Virginia map, my current state, and the other from a vintage Minneapolis/St. Paul map, where we lived before Virginia.

Other books made from the Minneapolis map have caught attention from art show shoppers because of their gray and pink color scheme. They don't make maps like this anymore!

There are several lakes featured on the Minneapolis book, including a fun discovery: Snail Lake.

The pages of these lotus books were made from the same World Atlas. When you "open" these books, they unfold into a malleable array of pages. When closed, the folds return to an orderly stack. One of the two lotus folds features various maps of Africa, both political and topographical. The other is made from an assortment.

My collaboration is one of the first the HDMA has done in recent months, but that's not to say that founder Kris Harzinski hasn't been busy. The HDMA recently published its first book, "From Here to There," showcasing dozens of maps collected in the past three years. You can find the book on Amazon.

As always, the HDMA has been collecting and posting numerous maps. They're easy to browse and share. To get started, check out these maps submitted by my husband.

Remember, the linenlaid&felt giveaway runs to the end of October, so look around for that map you drew the other day -- or sketch a fresh one -- and send them in for your chance to win.