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Book binding options

The most common binding for zines / booklets we do in-house is ‘saddle stitch’, aka stapled down a centre fold.

This is suitable for booklets up to 100pp (pp = printed pages). We can saddle stitch A5 booklets both portrait & landscape no problem at all, but for A4 it’s portrait only.  We can do an A6 landscape, but it’s not perfect: the booklet would only have one staple, and they won’t be perfectly in the spine height centre (this is because we need to booklet at A5 and chop in half!).

If you are looking for alternative binding for your publication, we do work with book binders who can perfect bind, PUR bind, singer sewn, and spiral / comb bind. Please bear in mind that these other binding options will be more expensive and will take longer to quote, layout and finish than our standard saddle stitch.

Our bookletter working hard on a run of A4 comics

Folding fliers & cards

We can offer a couple of different types of folding in-house:

  • Our machine folder can do quite a few different variations, but it mostly gets used for fliers, folding A4 to A5.  It’s super quick once we get the machine set up so this is a pretty cheap process.
  • We can also score into card (best for over 150gsm).  We’ll do this for greetings cards and j-cards for cassette tapes.  This is done manually one at a time so is more expensive than machine folding.  We’ll offer scored, or scored-and-folded. 

If we can’t offer a particular type of folding you’re looking for, we’ll outsource.  We often call on Leeds Die Cutting for our crossfolding from A3 to A5 needs.

Wharf Chambers monthly listings, A4 landscape, machine-folded twice

CD & Record Sleeve options

Card CD wallets are a good plastic-free alternative to jewel cases. We can print single- and double-pocket wallets, as well as inserts and booklets.

When it comes to vinyl sleeves, we can now only offer 7 inch sleeves: either type of printing, either simple single-fold, or creating a pocket-style sleeve.

If you are looking for a pocket-style sleeve, we’ll send it out to our local die-cutters (G&M in Mabgate) to cut and glue it together.  If you’re doing a small run, are on a tight budget, or just really really love to D-I-Y, we can send them to you flat for you to cut out and make up yourself.  We can get a roll of the special double-sided sticky tape they use at G&M for £3.

Please get in touch if you have any questions, and / or if you want a template for your artwork.

We’ve also got a few options for cassette covers!  If you’ve got those little plastic boxes for your tape, we can do a J-card with scored sections no problem at all.  HOWEVER, there is a plastic-free option!  Give us a shout if you’re interested in our card cassette box.  As with any of the options listed above, we can send you out a template so you can fit your artwork to our specifications.

Badges

We have a very very lo-fi badge making department.  Here are the sizes we can offer:

  • 25mm (pictured)
  • 38mm
  • 45mm

The footprint badges pictured shows digital print with a lot of riso random & multi-printing over the top.  Usually riso printing badges will be expensive, so most of the time we’d advise using digital print for badges.  Don’t be afraid to ask us about riso print badges (prices below), but if you want to know more about riso printing in general, check out this page.

25mm

x20: £42

x50: £53

x100: £74

x200: £115

38mm

x20: £46

x50: £62

x100: £90

x200: £148

45mm

x20: £46

x50: £63

x100: £93

x200: £152

Stickers

We can print stickers too!  Unfortunately this is the part where we get less eco-friendly: our sticker paper is not recycled.  We’ve always used crack back / split back sticker paper, we just need to put aside a bit of time to go on a reliable recycled sticker paper quest.  If you’re reading this and you know of a decent white / off-white recycled paper supplier, give us a shout!

We can print on the sticker paper with both the risographs and the digital printer.  Neither are particularly weather-proof or very hardy, so bear that in mind.

The most common shapes we offer are rectangular or square, as we’ll use our guillotine (which has a straight blade) to chop them down to size.  We can also order in circular or other shaped labels from Label Planet.