Craft & Process

Slow machines. Steady hands. Perfect registration.

The brief

We look at your collection, the swatch sizes and how your customers will use the book. Format, stock and finish all follow from that first conversation.

Two makers discussing an open wallpaper sample book at a worktable in the bindery

Make-ready

Every forme is set up by hand on the press bed, measured and checked before a single sheet runs. A good run begins with a patient make-ready.

Craftsman in a cap setting up a forme on the press bed by hand, surrounded by tools and paper

Printing & foil blocking

We print on our late-1940s Heidelberg presses, chosen because nothing modern matches their pressure and precision. Foil blocking runs on the same machines, with the same care.

Craftswoman operating the hand controls of a vintage printing press in the Oldham workshop

Creasing & cutting

Crisp folds and clean edges, so the book opens flat and lasts in the showroom. Each sheet is creased and guillotined by hand, checked for square as it goes.

Maker squaring a stack of fabric-faced board on the guillotine bed before cutting

Gluing

Swatches are pasted to their backing boards on the glue roller, a thin even coat every time. It is a small thing, but it is why the pages never lift or curl.

Cut window cards laid out on the bench beside the glue roller, ready for pasting

Hand assembly

Swatches are mounted, trimmed and bound by a team averaging over 20 years' experience. That length of service shows in the work.

Hands lifting a fabric swatch from a fanned row of upholstery samples on the workshop bench

Checked & packed

Every book is inspected before it leaves Oldham. Registration, hinges, foil — all checked by eye, one last time.

Craftsman with a magnifying glass inspecting the finished Arthouse Playful Prints sample book on the workshop bench

Dispatched

Wrapped in brown paper and string, by hand, at the same bench it was made on. Then out of the door and on its way to your showroom.

Sample books wrapped in brown kraft paper and tied with string, stacked on the workshop bench

The machines

The Heidelbergs.

Our presses were built in the late 1940s and have run ever since. Their pressure and register are still what modern machines fall short of: the impression sits deep and even, sheet after sheet.

They are slower, louder and need more looking after than anything built since. They are also the reason the books feel the way they do.

The details

Finishes we offer.

Foil blocking

Debossing

Embossing

Creasing

Die-cutting

Screen printing

Digital print