Stack: April

This month's Stack was another double whammy: Printed Pages and Your Days Are Numbered.

Printed Pages
Printed Pages is the print spin-off of online magazine It's Nice That. It is indeed nice. Its tagline is "championing creativity across the art and design world" and its scope is just as broad as that suggests. This issue includes an interview with Jon Link and Mick Bunnage of Modern Toss, a conversation between Tavi Gevinson and Minna Gilligan of Rookie, photographs by Bruno Drummond and Gemma Tickle, and profiles of people who work in various galleries and museums across London.

It's all very pleasant, with high production values and people talking about how great it is making things. It also felt a little bland, although some of my indifference might have stemmed from comparing this to the other magazine in April's delivery...

Would I buy it again? Probably not. It was an enjoyable read on the Tube, but it didn't grab my attention.

Your Days Are Numbered
Printed Pages looks just a little too staid and earnest alongside Your Days Are Numbered. This slim, free magazine about comics is published four times a year and, based on the strength of this issue, it's bursting with energy and irreverence. It's a mixture of short interviews and even shorter reviews, and the team behind it have had loads of fun with the layouts, which obviously incorporate lots of illustrations. It's clearly going to be a drain on my bank balance though, I have eight books to add to my wish list as a result of reading this magazine.

Would I buy it again? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, although it's free so this would actually be unnecessary. You can supposedly pay to have a year's worth of issues delivered to your house - which I was going to do! - but there's nothing in their online shop. Get it together, guys, I would give you some money if I could.

Bookbinding, week 12

This is my final bookbinding post! It's a long one as it covers everything about making the little soft-cover jotter except folding the paper.

It starts with the sections being sewn together. I wrapped a sheet of cream paper around every other green section before sewing the sections so that the cream is evenly distributed throughout.

Bookbinding, week 11

So, the case I made last week was the wrong size. The spine was about 5mm too wide as can be seen in the picture below.

Let's skip over me making a second case and get to the point where I could finally glue the lid and tray to the case. First the lid:

Bookbinding, week 10

Below is a photograph of the tray and the lid of the box, now covered and lined. When the lining is glued in it needs to be weighted or pressed to ensure it ends up completely flat. What I forgot to photograph was the other side, which is currently uncovered. A case will cover the other side and connect both pieces.

Stack: March

This month's delivery – The Ride Journal – was the kind of thing I was expecting from Stack: a really compelling magazine that I would not have bought for myself because it's about a subject I have no interest in. Ostensibly this is a cycling magazine and as I'm the sort of nervous cyclist who can't take her hands of the handlebars I wouldn't have bought a cycling magazine in a hundred years. But The Ride Journal isn't here to tell you what bike to buy, instead its contributors write short pieces about their personal relationship to cycling. There are articles about competing in races and designing bikes, about people met while cycling and strange places cycled across. There's a brilliant pair of articles about bicycle theft called “Thief” and “Taken”. There's a man who writes about the bike rides he made following the death of his infant son and a woman who writes about abandoning cycling as a teenager after a bike ride led her to discover her mother's infidelity. There's a series of photos showing a morning commute through London and another one showing a muddy, cross-country race in Belgium. It's about cycling, whatever that means to its readers and writers.

It looks stunning too; most articles are accompanied by gorgeous illustrations in a huge range of styles. It's even heftier than and it breaks up its uncoated pages with some glossy photographic sections such as the Belgian race photographs. It's beautiful and interesting and I'm really pleased to have received a copy.

Would I buy it again? Not for myself, but I would definitely get this as a gift for a keen cyclist.

Bookbinding, week 9

The lid of the box is basically made the same way as the tray, only it's slightly bigger so it fits over the tray. Let's skip that and move on to something new: lining the tray and the lid. Measure the width and height of the inside of the tray, (if one side is shorter than the other use the smaller measurement), then deduct 1mm from each measurement. Cut two pieces of board to this size.

Bookbinding, week 8

After getting off to a bad start with the box, (measure twice, cut once!), I'm back on track. The first step was cutting the pieces for the tray.