Some context.
Even the bookbinder had trouble opening this site.
Which is too bad, since i would like to see more.
Don't they have a collection at the Reed library?
Tim
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Thomas Conroy via OldTools 
Date: Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 9:54 PM
Subject: Re: [OldTools] Thumb screw wanted
To: Dragon List 
Cc: Old TOOLS 


Bill asked: "what was the breakthrough, tom?"
I ran horizontal lines across the spines, ending them with small circles,
level with the ends of the half-circles on the covers.The cover design is
basically a traditional one, used in France for semi-opulent work, in the
16th through early 19th centuries. I simplified a bit, and followed my own
sense of proportion. When I did the covers I didn't realize how common the
design was, I had just seen one or two and liked it. My teacher's practice
would have been to put just the title on the spine, but that seemed
inadequate to me. I wanted something to tie the covers together. When I
went back to historical examples, they had scads of parallel decorative
rolls across the spines, or sometimes single big central panels. The idea
on those old bindings was to give the maximum appearance of luxury when the
book was shelved. But these seemed to me to be to busy for the covers, and
in any case they didn't actually tie together the whole package--- in the
18th century and earlier, no one conside
 red the covers and spine to be one subdivided unit that needed to be tied
together. The superficially best idea would be to use one big lozenge
(diamond) on the spine; but this causes problems with getting straight
lines to look straight on a curved surface, and it left no-place good to
put the title. The final idea hit everything right: simple, tied things
together, left a good space for fitting in the title, good proportions
possible.

Tom Conroy
Berkeley

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