With today’s modern book manufacturing capabilities, it’s become too easy to overlook the process behind printing words on pages and binding those pages to last the test of time. Ultimately, before large publishing houses were able to invest in mass manufacturing capabilities for stocking the shelves of book stores around the world, book publishing was an entirely different ballgame.
Perhaps few appreciate the craft of making books by hand as much as Andrew Hoyem, master typographer and printer of Arion Press. One of the last printing shops of its kind, Arion Press is one of the last surviving institutions that came out of San Francisco’s long tradition of fine printing and book making over a century ago as the result of the Gold Rush and an economic boom.
With just a few expert staff on hand, all books made by the small company are manufactured using techniques that couldn’t be a truer testament towards the saying “quality over quantity”.
For his latest Raw Craft installment, Anthony Bourdain headed to San Francisco to get a behind the scenes look at a process that is almost just as much of a form of art as the finished product itself.
“Each works meticulously to create the books in multiple parts, from the typecasters, to the proofreaders, to the printers and the bookbinders. All of these hands build a work of art through a process that must be seen to be believed, and can only, truly, be described as magic.”
Be sure to check out the rest of Anthony Bourdain’s surprisingly good series over at the Raw Craft YouTube channel.
