Factory Friday: Downie Allison Downie Bookbinders

In our ongoing Factory Friday series, we are delving into the stories behind some of the Scottish Manufacturers that you can find on Make Works.

This week we've interviewed Robin at Downie Allison Downie; bookbinders in Glasgow specialising in portfolios, box-making, short run books and leather work.

Who is the typical client that comes into DAD?

We get a diverse range of people coming through our doors. We work with libraries to bind monthly periodicals into yearly bound volumes; students for their thesis binding; individuals for repairs of family bibles or treasured heirlooms; individuals for short-run books like memoirs or novels; artists for one-off books of their work and businesses or design agencies looking for unique presentation solutions that help their work stand out from the crowd.

Most people come to us with a limited knowledge of bookbinding and the intricacies involved in typesetting, printing and the different binding options. We like to help our customers gain a bit of knowledge during the process, taking the time to work with them to produce exactly what they’re looking for.

What are the challenges and benefits of being a family run business?

Being a family business comes with its own challenges - when you work together it’s hard to switch off and relax outside working hours, and we always find ourselves talking about it when we’re not there!

However, I feel the benefits outweigh the challenges, and for us not having the boundaries that exist in a larger organisation is a great thing. It allows us to be more adaptable and flexible in our approach to both the business and the creative projects we work on.

Print is often described as going through a ‘resurgence’ at the moment, do you think that’s true and how often do you think we’ll see the industry continue to change over the coming years?

There does seem to be a resurgence in crafts at the moment, with an emphasis on handmade local products and an appreciation of practical skills. We’ve found our bookbinding classes getting busier as a result of this, with people wanting to gain hands on experience. We’ve also seen an increase in our short run book manufacture, with many people bringing in all sorts of books of their own design to be made. We like working with people who are excited about books and helping them see their own work become physical. We’ve helped customers work on selfie books, books made up of text messages, recipe books, personal journals and gifts for loved ones.

Businesses are also engaging with this resurgence, and can be seen to be changing their approach in order to stand out from the crowd and showcase their work to clients. We’ve been able to work with businesses to help them gain a competitive edge - some of the projects we’ve worked on recently include one-off portfolios for important interviews, branded folders and presentation binders for use in meetings as well as small promotional books to send out to prospective clients.

Are there any recent projects that you’ve particularly enjoyed that have come through DAD?

We work on very diverse projects on a day to day basis - one day it can be art students’ projects due for an approaching hand-in, or it could be 100 books for a graphic design agency looking to showcase their work in an inventive way. However, two recent projects that we have been working on that I have particularly enjoyed are:

Binding 21 full leather minute books for The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (R.I.A.S.), which was really satisfying. The minutes ranged from 1916 till 2015 and came to us mostly unbound and in a sorry state, and it’s a great pleasure to see them all bound in leather, allowing them to be displayed with pride in their head office and survive for years to come.

We often come across prestigious businesses that have libraries in various stages of neglect, but with no budget to restore their books to their former glory, so it was great that R.I.A.S. realized the importance of having them bound in order to conserve the history of the organization. As bookbinders we love it when books are able to look their very best!

At the moment we’re also working on a very large box for an artist to hold prints of his work. It’s nearly 1m long, and he’s screen printed his artwork onto our fabric which will cover the box when finished. There are a few different aspects of this project that aren’t straightforward and require a bit of extra planning and work, but that’s the type of project we love to do here – it provides us with a challenge, makes a unique finished product and tests our skills at the same time.

In your industry why do you think local manufacturing is important?

It’s becoming harder and hard to learn bookbinding as a skill, with only a couple of formal training opportunities nationwide like city of guilds which covers only a few aspects of bookbinding at a basic level. After the government changed the status of bookbinding from a trade to a craft, the majority of courses at colleges have closed over the years, and apprenticeships are no longer available. This makes it harder to find experienced bookbinders, and we have to rely mostly on in house training of our bookbinders. This isn’t always ideal, but is the only way forward in order to keep the skill alive and assures us of the quality of the work we produce.

If we don’t support local binders and outsource to Italy, China, Germany etc. then bookbinding in the UK will eventually disappear. Due to the high skill level and the cost of machinery involved in setting up a bindery it would be unlikely that it will continue as a viable business in the UK. If we don’t use it we’ll lose it! Being a small local business also grants us a huge degree of flexibility and willingness to collaborate with a customer to get exactly what they’re looking for – something you won’t find on cheap online bookmaking websites.

By using a local bookbinders you are investing in the trade and skill. Our team here at Downie Allison Downie understand the market of Glasgow. We have good relationships with the creative industries and other manufacturers in Scotland whom we collaborate with regularly, which allows us to offer the best service to our customers. Make Works has been a great connector of manufacturers, encouraging collaboration between makers and allowing workshops to develop,

Finally, we believe that the most important part of having a local bookbinder is that you can pop in and see us! We email or speak on the phone with people daily about their bookbinding repairs or projects, but there’s no alternative to getting your hands on the book to get an understanding of what is involved, or showing the customer that materials and examples to help them take their project forward. 

Thanks very much to Robin for speaking with us You can take a look at Downie Allison Downie Bookbinders here on Make Works and if you'd like to find out more about Bookbinding read this Made Works by Sollas Bookbinding