Binding Choice

After looking at binding in the previous blog, I wanted to make sure that they way I did my binding was creative and new. The whole point of thinking about how your work will be bound is to create something to match your theme and that really stands out!! Not to just go and buy a display book that has plastic sheets in.... Even if some ideas do not work I want to prove that I have had a go at creating some creative way to bind my work. After all I have spent loads of time designing the pages to display my work, so why should the binding be any different.

String: Would match the paper (stationary look) theme of my design work, but at the end of the day would simply look like a piece of paper with a hole and some string going through it. Making me look more like a pikey and tacky than a clever idea!!

Paper Fasteners: They will look quite good, very simply but quite effective. However due to the examples from Mariana I think that everyone is going to do that idea, and I want to be different and not just pick something because its easy and is the first idea that came along.

Presentation Books: There are some nice presentation books about, but one being very expensive and quite unoriginal, as mentioned its not the point of the task to go out and buy a book, I have read so many quotes that say if your presentation book etc looks better than the work inside you have a problem!! You want something simply but yet creative!! Seeing as we are.... what is it called?? oooo yer, designers.

I was scratching my head for a while, I decided to have a look around my dads garage and see what bits and bobs he had lying around. Finally I found some bits and the creative juices started to flow and I have come up with the following way to bind my work.....


DOOR HINGES!! (with nuts and bolts)














































As you can see from the image above, I have used door hinges that normally are used to well.... hold up doors. These are clamped around two sheets of card with plastic sleeves in the middle to hold the work. The card on the top is blank at the moment, but I will be printing out my front cover design to be stuck on soon.

(note: you may be thinking.. Jesus dan those screws are massive, you could take somones eye out with those, yes fair point. I have left them there original size... for the moment!!! mainly because of not completing all the pages of work that need to go inside, once they have all been printed and put inside I will then hack off the top of the screws and file them smooth to a decent hight (so someone does not loose an eye.)
























I have crease the card at the top so that it can be lifted to reveal the work in the plastic sleeves, which can then be turned. This means that work can be taken out or put in at any time and if more work needs to be added more plastic sleeves can simply be added by removing the bolt sliding off the front cover and then adding more sleeves and doing it all back up again... simple.

























(Above you can see more of the plastic sleeves.)

So far I am happy with the result, it has taken me a few hours to cut all the card to the correct sizies, drill bigger holes into the door hinges to fit the screws and connect it all together. Once all the work has been printed off an placed inside and the front cover stuck on, I might add a sheet of perspex to the front just to act as a protective barrier but unsure as of yet.

Con: Love the idea, but it is quite heavy!! door frames are not exactly what I would call light, however this was just a test. I might decide to take of the door hinges and just have the screws, nuts and bolts. Thereby keeping the theme but loosing some of that added weight.