Houchen Bindery,
Ltd. Spine Styles
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Graphic covers are very popular with our edition
customers. When designing your cover art, it is
important to know what spine type and binding method will be
employed to make your book. Those factors can affect
how the artwork fits on the hardcover. Use these
guidelines and templates to help create your designs.
Please review our guidelines and information about
paper grain direction, and
how to prepare materials to be
supplied to us for
lamination. |
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Soft Strip:
This method uses a thin card stock spine strip equal to
the thickness of the text bulk. This is often used on
thicker books with jackets and textbooks. This method
creates a more "shouldered look" as the spine is narrower
than the front and back case boards.
Click here to download a Soft Spine cover template |
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Hard Strip:
A Hard Strip is made from material that is the same
thickness as the front and back case boards, but the spine
width is slightly narrower than the text bulk. This
will create a book with "shoulders" on the front and back
case boards also.
Click
here to download a Hard Spine cover template
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Left side: minimum thickness side-sewn book; Right:
ultra-bound book approximately .5" thick. |
Hard Spine/ Square Back
A Hard Spine/ Square Back cover also uses a spine
strip which is of the same weight board as the front and
back case boards, but the spine is made 3/16" wider than the
text bulk. This creates a "square" look. This is
often used on thin cased Children's books, Trade
Editions, and nearly all side sewn books, without jackets.
Click here to download a Square Back/
Hard Spine cover template
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Rounded Back
Rounded
back books must be at least 1/2" thick and will always be
made with a soft spine. The rounding machine creates a
slight curvature in the spine edge allowing a thicker book
to have better open-ability.
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