Büchertiger Studio & Press is the label under which I create and sell bookbinding related products like blank books, boxes and CD folios or photo albums. And also all my artistic works, mainly book art and prints. I created additional pages for you to browse
All of the above can be purchased through me directly or in my Etsy Shop Büchertiger.
I also write instructions which are published under the label Büchertiger Studio & Press, but nevertheless are for sale in the shop that is other wise dedicated to supplies: Etsy Shop Büchertiger Supplies (there is also a page here for more information about Büchertiger Supplies in general).
I have used different imagery to mark my products over the years. The book tiger plate above is still part of my letter head and marks my shipping label. I don’t think I used it much on bookbinding tickets inside books. Usually I just write Büchertiger Studio and Press, the year, and sign.
The following are other grafic elements that I have used in books and on packaging and advertising materials.
Why the name?
Well, you probably know that Büchertiger is German and means book tiger. I think reading and cats go well together, probably because I like both, and it is so nice to sit on a couch in winter with the sun shining warmly through the window, with a book in my hand and a cat on my lap.
When I was about to found my business in 2008, I started out by writing a business plan to receive governmental funding for the first year, and an important part of my initial business idea was that I would be giving a lot of courses which I was aiming mostly to children from age 8 to 16, and so I was looking for a name that would appeal to children and their parents. Book tiger sounded cute to me. I was dreaming of renting a currently empty shop near to where I lived. I imagined how walkers by would see how I was working with the children inside on a weekly basis, and bold letters forming the words book tiger workshops would arch on the window front. Well, things have changed a lot over since these first dreams, and I never gave workshops to this age group but the name stuck.
By the way, ü, u umlaut, is transcribed “ue” in German, thus my “ue” in urls and usernames – maybe you came across them at some place.
Verzwirnt und Zugeleimt
“Verwirnt und zugeleimt” was my blog’s tagline for many years. Again this is German. As you may know, one of the features of the German language is that it’s so easy to simply make up new words. I would be really surprised if you could find the word “verzwirnt” or “zugeleimt” in a dictionary. But those familiar with German word-building would probably understand them as:
“verzwirnt”: a condition into which you get if you tried to do something with thread, and it went wrong
“zugeleimt”: something covered in glue and now is either wholly covered or can’t be opened anymore
There is a common curse in German : “verzwickt und zugenäht” – and this sounds very similar. To wrap it up, a very free but quite acurate translation of this tagline would be: “Oh man, this thing with thread and glue went wrong again!” It seems fitting to my preferred way of learning by trial and often many errors.
The Studio
My studio changed quite a bit since its founding days. It occupied two different rooms in Bonn and is now (temporarily) located in our loft in Nottingham. Here are a few images of the room and of me working in the room:
