The manual, intimate art of binding books by hand have long been replaced by machines that can fully automate the process, and at way faster rates too. Why spend so much time and effort in gently sewing or gluing stacks of papers together when factories can bind books by the dozens and spew them out lickety-split?
Not so for Adelene Koh. Trained in London and Japan, the founder of fine bookbinding firm dddots is one of the few — if not only — local hand bookbinders in the country. Like letterpress printer Michelle Yu of The Gentlemen's Press, she believes that techniques of old still have an important place in modern society.