This customer's husband is a chef and she wanted me to make a book where he could record his favorite recipes.  His favorite things to make are dishes that include pork, so she wanted an image of a little pig on the front cover.  The starfish image on the back cover is part of the logo at the restaurant where her husband works.  This book has 250 unlined pages (about 1 and 1/4 inches thick) that are 9 and 11/16" tall by 8 and 3/4" wide.  The measurements are odd because I was trying to arrive at a cover with a finished size of 10" tall by 9" wide.  It is nearly impossible for me to work backwards like this; taking the cover size then trying to make the pages a size that will result in the desired cover size.  I prefer to get the page size, then make the cover to fit the pages.  I did come pretty close to the 10"x9" cover she wanted, but it still wasn't EXACTLY 10"x9".  The cover itself is made of dark brown goatskin and tan Sokoto goatskin leathers.  These colors look beautiful together.  There is no overlap where the leather meets; just a smooth transition.  I love the way the blind-stamped pig turned out on the front cover.  The pig image was taken from an old engraved illustration of a pig and a metal die was made from that.  The pig is still available for use on future orders (but not the starfish, since that was part of a trademarked logo).  The cover colors are complimented by the mottled Nepalese endpapers (which, sadly, I can no longer buy).  Even though the design of this cover is simple, the colors really work well together as do the blind-stamped decorations and words.

A book like this would cost around $260 not including the custom dies that were made for the cover decorations.

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