Book printers 2- Bob books
Another printers that was recommended to us was “Bob books”, established in 2006 and founded by a group of pioneers in publishing and book binding. By 2009 they weren’t just supplying photo books, they were also doing wall art, calendars and cards. They also started the book of the month competition as a result of being overwhelmed by the number of incredible photographs being reproduced in their books, and also launched ‘Bob bookshop’ so customers could reach a larger audience.
They combine traditional bookbinding techniques with the most innovative printing technologies, making them the UK’s top supplier of photographic paper photo books with lay-flat binding.
The process for printing a book looks very simple, with only a few stages.
1- Choose a size.
They offer a few different sizes for their photo books, such as landscape, square and portraits (in small or large), which I like because printing square can be hard sometimes.
2- Choose a paper
They also have really great quality paper available, their photographic paper books go through a traditional silver-halide wet printing process and then are bound lay-flat. For their paper they offer classic, gloss coated, matte, lustre photographic, gloss photographic and matte photographic.
3- Choose a cover
Their books come with full image wrap-around printed hardback covers, and you can customise with images and text on the front, back and spine. They also offer paperback covers in selected formats.
4- Choose a binding
Lastly, you choose the binding, either perfect binding or lay-flat binding. The pages of their perfectly bound books are glued together at the spine, which gives a traditional look. Lay-flat binding allows the book to open completely, with no loss of image down the gutter/ middle.
They have their pricing available on their website, so I went through and picked some of the options at random as I’m not sure what size or paper I want at the moment. I chose a small portrait book, with gloss coated paper, hardback with lay-flat binding, and for 30 pages, it costs £33.59 which I think is quite reasonable. I think this number will obviously change if I pick a bigger book, or a different paper. There are 3 ways to create your book- use the Bob designer software, online book creator or use a PDF, so there’s a lot of options. I really like how easy and simple the website is, it makes me more comfortable as book creating and printing can be daunting.
I also really like their bookshop idea, selling self-published books is a great way to support lesser known artists. Looking through the bookshop allowed me to look at some of the books they printed, and I like the variety, with simple designs and more intricate colourful designs also.
