Travellers' Journals


Notebooks in leather cases.

20+ available Sunday 24th November

vpco travellers' books

THE BOOKS

Bound entirely by hand in Scotland, these books are filled with 80 pages of British-made, recycled paper suitable for note taking and drawing in pencil and ink. These are soft bindings, giving them a greater flexibility than hardback bindings, perfect when travelling.

Every aspect of these books are created manually, from the hand printed paper covers to the sewing of the pages.

Like all of our books, even these simple soft bindings lay flat (and beyond), giving you full access to all of that papery real estate!

Size: 4 x 3 inches, 102 x 72 mm, 80 pages.

THE CASES

Handmade in our workshop, these are made from a type of leather which arrives at our place tanned but otherwise undyed and unfinished. 

From there we cut the leather into panels, dye and letterpress print them before cutting the shape of the case using a press and special shaped steel blade. 

Some of them, like the one above, are printed two and sometimes three times to get a layered, muti coloured and patterned effect. This particular case was printed first with a Japanese kimono pattern in copper before a second print, the blue-grey floral pattern, inspired by an 18th century European pattern was added. 

This blue panel was dyed with drawing ink.

The panel is then letterpress printed on our antique printing press in the same way we print paper.

When the ink has dried (which can take up to a week), the printed panel is placed, print side down, on a shaped steel blade called a die.

This is placed under a high-pressure press which cleanly cuts out the shape of the case and four small holes, one hole per outer flap.

The case is simply folded together like an envelope and held together with a metal Sam Browne stud and ta daa! 

Size: 4⅝ x 3⅜ inches, 118 x 88 mm

MADE ENTIRELY BY HAND IN SCOTLAND