Two of the best – an interview with our master bookbinders

So that you, dear reader, can hold your personal photo book in your hands, it requires many individual production steps. Large printers, loud machines, sharp knives and a very important ingredient: creative minds and busy hands.
The printing and binding of our photo books is not fully automated from start to finish. Many production steps still depend on a human being to take care of them.
In addition, we at Bubu not only produce photo books, but are also allowed to handle large orders in our industrial production and realize elaborate individual orders in the manual bindery.

At some point in the production cycle, every book passes through the craft department, and that's when Rahel Scheufele, head of craft, and Caroline Seidel, her deputy, come into play - both master bookbinders by trade.

We asked them both a few questions, and you can find out the answers here.

Dear Rahel and Caroline, what made you decide to train as bookbinders?

Rahel: That's too long a story to tell here... In short: through prayer and God's guidance - and he was 100% right :)

Caroline: It was then quite classically through a school internship.

As in many other professions, there are also competitions in bookbinding in which the best compete. Which competitions have you participated in during your career and which awards mean the most to you?

Rahel: I have participated in various international competitions, where participants from all over the world always meet. For example, in England, USA, France and Estonia. Special highlights were certainly the two 1st prizes in 2019 at the OpenSet competition in USA and at the SoB competition in England.

Book Thorvald Henningsen by Hans Burkhardt, 1st prize OpenSet competition USA

Caroline: During my training period, I participated several times in the international Youth Performance Competition. After that, I won a silver prize at the "Designer Bookbinders International Bookbinding Competition" in 2017, and last year I won one of the three first prizes at the international "Scripta manent VI" Competition in Tallinn. This one means the most to me, I think, because I tried a few techniques and things with the book. and things that I wasn't sure how well I would succeed at.

Competition book for Tallinn. The Estonian title is "Mine Metsa!", the German "Estwald", author Valdur Mikita

What are highlights of your career so far?

Rahel: Certainly being named best master out of 1000 entrants in 2015, but besides that, winning an award in New York for the OpenSet awards. But also at the top for me is the successful team development and employee support as a manager, as well as many successful EFZ-QV graduates.

Caroline: My highlights certainly include the competitions as already mentioned, but also the successful completion of the master school.

Are there any projects that you are particularly proud of?

Rahel: Basically, I only make covers that I personally like (I don't care about the judges) - which actually means that all projects fall into this category :) But I still think my masterpiece is particularly cool, as well as my recent vellum bindings.

Game box Triominos, masterpiece Rahel Scheufele

Caroline: Besides the competition book for Tallinn, I think my masterpiece, a cardboard cover for the game Dixit, because a lot of heart, time, nerves and work went into it after all.

Game box Dixit, masterpiece Caroline Seidel

It takes more than 30 steps to make the finished book. Which of these do you find the most challenging, the most beautiful, or the least popular tasks?

Rahel: For me, the most challenging part of an art book is finding the decorative ideas and a real gold edge - whereas I could happily do without the hours of sanding to turn a book into a hand-me-down. I then mostly enjoy the leather processing and actually the entire binding production.

Caroline: Not so popular, but hardly avoidable is probably the sanding. I find the book cut decoration, as well as the decoration, tricky and demanding. One of my favorite work steps is probably the stitching and the design.

What material do you like to work with the most?

Rahel: Probably leather and parchment, but I love to experiment with everything I can get my hands on - from eggshells to seaweed to plexiglass - as long as it's unconventional.

Caroline: Leather is one of my favorite materials, but paper is also versatile.

In your opinion, how does bookbinding today differ from the craftsmanship of hundreds of years ago?

Rahel: Basically, one must make a strong distinction between the individual terms - bookbinding stands for the entire industry, which can be divided into industry and craft. 100 years ago, the degree of automation was certainly less pronounced in both areas and some craft businesses also produced even higher editions than today - these are certainly now affiliated with industry and the number of craft businesses has shrunk.
The craftsmanship or the artistic design of the book can still be compared on the whole with that time - here there are and have always been strong regional differences - little has changed here in terms of the approach: even 100 years ago, innovation and the prevailing art movement (at that time New Objectivity) shaped the art of the book. The biggest change is probably in the people who practice the profession: While it used to be almost exclusively men, today you find 80% women - at least in the trades."

Caroline: In my opinion, this is difficult to answer, because today's craftsmanship is not that much different from what it was back then. Of course, bookbinding itself has already changed over the years with all the machines.

What appeals to you more, binding a book from scratch or restoring older books to make them still accessible?

Rahel: Although it is a special challenge to restore an old manuscript or something similar (I did that for 3 years), I usually prefer to dedicate myself to new books where I can also influence the design and choice of materials.

Book Periodic Table, Primo Levi, all-perforated binding on a floating spine with attached covers, 1st prize SoB competition in England

Caroline: I really enjoy doing both. I learned in a library, where it was mainly about the preservation of (old) books. But making new products also has its charms for me.

How do you see it, will bookbinding survive even with the advance of digitization?

Rahel: Digitization is not new - and the haptic experience of "reading" a book inspires many children, especially nowadays - I know this very well from my own experience. The e-book market has also been stagnating for a few years now, and completely detached from the mass market, the handbook binder will always be needed for special productions and repairs, in my opinion.

Caroline: Since the haptic experience continues to be important again in my opinion, or precisely because of digitization, bookbinderies will continue to exist. But in what form and size is the question.