It’s All in the Binding

When most people sit down to write a booklet, they usually aren’t thinking about how they’re going to eventually bind the finished product. After all, how much can you really do?

That’s the thing of it: there are a lot of different styles of binding out there, and many of them can have a much different impact on how the finished product looks.

While the most important thing about a booklet is what it has to say, don’t doubt the benefits of having a great looking package. When you go to the bookstore the books have slick covers and nice binding for a reason. If you’re spending the money on commercial printing to have your booklets made, you want to be sure that they look good enough that they encourage people to read them.

People might be getting the most enjoyment out of actually reading the books, but they have to be given a reason to pick them up to begin with. If the packaging isn’t good then people aren’t going to be too enthused about what waits inside that package.

So let’s go over the different forms of binding that are open to you. I don’t intend to cover all of them, because there are quite a few, but I will mention a few more well known ones, and give the benefits they offer.

The first is ring binding. If you’ve ever owned a spiral notebook you know what this is similar to. Ring binding doesn’t have the same visual flare of some of the other forms of binding, and so you won’t have quite as nice looking of a package. A benefit is that people will easily be able to move through your pages, and can lay the book flat if you want to have two pages together that form a single image.

The next method is thermal binding. This method binds a strong strip along the edge of the pages to hold them together. What you get is something that looks nicer than ring binding, and still gives people some flexibility in how they choose to look through your booklet. You can still lay a book flat with thermal binding.

The last method I’ll discuss is perfect binding. If you’ve ever seen a paperback novel than you know what this style of binding does. This will give you an even better look than the other two forms, but limits how people can use your booklet. You won’t be able to lay the book down flat.

Each style has varying costs, and there are plenty more forms out there. Whoever is doing your commercial printing should be able to give you all the details you need on what methods there are for binding. Make sure to look at them all before you make any decisions so that you’ll know that the method you’re using is the best one for you.