LITTLE BOOK SERIES
1994-2008

I decided to produce a series of books which had an element of uniformity, used a similar amount of materials and importantly, were accessible financially, they were initially £5 each.

I had limited means of production and the first Little Book I made was Saplings which is printed entirely with rubber stamps. The next two books 15 Cows and Fifteen English Homes were made with photocopies and hand cut rubber stamps and were initially made in black and white. In the mid 90's I bought a computer and started to use inkjet printing, a Little Book of Moths was the first to be designed for inkjet printing. I liked the colour and revisited some of the earlier books introducing colour and continued those editions in colour, printing them in inkjet. Some of these books therefore were not rigid in production but could evolve each time I made a batch.

Most of the books were designed to print on the A4 sheet format, using all the sheet in an economical way and exploring different ways to divide the sheet. The inside pages were made from 1 A4 sheet which was cut up and folded in different ways, predominantly the sheet was cut into 3 strips and glued together to create a long accordion book. The cover is a sixth of A4. The books were sold in a pack with a cardboard insert (third A4 ) and a postcard (A6, a quarter A4).

I made all the books up myself in numbered editions of 500. I also published some of the books as ‘make yourself book kits’, also in numbered editions of 500. All the elements to make the book including extras and instructions were placed in a bag which was designed to be an artwork in its self, even if not made.

The Little Books and Kits shown below.

© John Dilnot 2024