When we started the London Centre for Book Arts in 2012, our goal was to create a place where people could affordably access equipment, resources and expertise to create and edition books and publications.
Although we’ve grown significantly since then, we remain a small, independent organisation, and most of the day-to-day is still managed between the two of us, Simon Goode and Ira Yonemura.
Sharing resources, skills and expertise has always been at the heart of LCBA. Over the years we have grown to include occasional publishing projects, commissions, consultations, talks & presentations, and a shop (online and irl) to our core activities.
"From the start, we took a pragmatic and somewhat anti-institutional approach to running the studio: keeping things small, staying independent, and prioritising community and friendships. The personality of the studio, if we can call it that, comes from the marriage of our backgrounds and interests.
Simon (Wolverhampton, UK) studied Book Arts and Crafts at the London College of Communication (LCC) and was lucky enough to have been taught by the last of the trade bookbinders, printers and print finishers on a course that emphasised a practical and craft-based approach to ‘book arts’.
Ira (Kagoshima, Japan), meanwhile, studied Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and around the same time fell into a community of artists, musicians and queer activists who saw books and publishing as an extension of their practices; and self-organisation and collaboration as their de facto model of working."
The entrance to LCBA on Dace Road, Fish Island.
The LCBA bindery.
