Carole King

CRAFT: DESIGNS

REGION: Newcastle Emlyn, Wales, UK

Carole King is the artist, designer and bookbinder behind Nant Designs, a West Wales studio specialising in hand-stitched and hand-bound books, journals and sketchbooks.

Carole creates her own repeating patterns, inspired by the Welsh landscape and geometric forms, developing drawings into multi-layered stencils and printing each colour individually by hand using silkscreen techniques. These papers are then transformed into individually constructed books using traditional bookbinding methods including Coptic, longstitch, buttonhole, map-fold and concertina bindings.  

Her books are made from first principles, with different papers, bindings and formats selected according to their intended use. Many are one-off or short-edition pieces, with individually printed covers making every book slightly different.  

Carole trained at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design before moving to West Wales. She also teaches bookbinding and produces bookbinding kits and instructional material.