Radiobook Rwanda
No Bindings, Huza Trust & Kwani Press
This beautiful series of hand-sewn pocket books is published by Huza Press, Kwani Trust and No Bindings: a multimedia literary imprint showcasing Rwandan and East African creative voices.
The books combine words and art, print and audio, and are illustrated by original artworks by artists from Kenya and Rwanda and a short story, printed in English and Kinyarwanda, written by an emerging Rwandan writer.
Interlocking binding
No Bindings are a small independent press that blend print and audio with bookbinding workshops. Their publications are handmade, and intend to showcase a lesser known voices.
Originally designed to be printed in Rwanda, the interlocking format was conceived to have a hand-bound feel in-keeping with No Binding’s strong ‘zine’ aesthetic, whilst also being commercially scalable to a run of 3000 copies.
Radiobook Rwanda Sound
The book links to an affiliate series of podcasts in English and Kinyarwandan. Each podcast expands the book’s narrative with dramatised narrations of each story and interviews by some of Rwanda’s most exciting creative voices: Natacha Muziramakenga, Umuhuza Denyse, Malaika Uwamahoro, Emma-Claudine Ntirenganya and Kimenyi Hervé. Rwanda has a rich oral storytelling tradition; a freely available audio format increases their accessiblity.
Risography
Inspired by concept sketches of handbound dummies by co-publisher Lily Green, our design challenge was to retain the zine aesthetic of the No Bindings brand and paper engineer a commercially scalable publication using processes compatible with presses, binderies and machines located in both Rwanda and in the UK.
Press-passing
Lily Green, director of No Bindings, signs-off the first offset litho sheets of Radiobook Rwanda at Taylor Brothers, Bristol. Seeing the pride and delight on our clients’ faces when they see their book come off the press for the first time is one of the best parts of the job. Arriving at this point in a book’s production represents a huge amount work behind the scenes, coordinating, scheduling, planning and many, many rounds of proofing and checking.
Inspired by concept sketches of handbound dummies by co-publisher Lily Green, our design challenge was to retain the zine aesthetic of the No Bindings brand and paper engineer a commercially scalable publication using processes compatible with presses, binderies and machines located in both Rwanda and in the UK.
The resultant series contains three books, each containing two singer sewn booklets engineered into a single interlocking card cover. Each book is designed and printed in two colours: black + alternating ‘risograph’ red, green and blue. Typography was chosen to optimise the space and legibility, as the Kinyarwanda language is c.50% longer than English, meaning we quickly reached the limitations of binding.
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