The Making of the Ian Fleming Notebooks

We recently visited the home of the Stamford Notebook Company, to see our new Ian Fleming A5 notebooks being handmade by their team of artisan bookbinders. Take a tour through the production process with us…

Cover Making

Cardboard panels are glued to the cover fabric/leather, then trimmed, folded and carefully smoothed.

Custom metal dies are used to blind emboss, and hot foil emboss with gold foil.

Slits are made in the back cover to allow elastic to be inserted, trimmed and glued in place.

Pages

The notebook pages are printed in-house, using British made, fountain-pen friendly paper that is milled in the beautiful Cumbrian town of Kendal.

Groups of printed sheets folded in the middle, called sections, are sewn together by a 1948 Smyth book sewer, which allows the book to open fully whilst remaining very strong.

A piece of reinforcing paper is glued over the sewn sections, securing the endpapers in place.

The pages are trimmed – first around each edge, and then the corners are rounded.

Finishing Touches

A bookmark ribbon is glued to the spine of the pages and trimmed.

The book is cased-in – the first and last pages are coated in glue, and the cover is attached.

The notebooks are sandwiched between sheets of protective cardboard, and then pressed in a hand-operated press to help seal the glue.

As a finishing touch, they are then pressed in a separate machine to produce an indent along the spine – the French Groove – which allows the book to open flat.

Finished copies are available exclusively from our website in four elegant finishes: Black or Burgundy Leather and Khaki or Green Woven Cloth. Order yours here.