Creating personalized bookplates

Does anyone know where I can get bookplates created; either artists who create them or printers that specialize in them?

what kind of bookplate are you looking for. depending on the style you want you might consider differet kinds of artists

The old fashioned kind that have to be glued in and, ideally, engraved. As for subject matter, that's up in the air. I have a pen and ink drawing of a satyr running off with a skeleton that I've always liked, but I really don't know. I emailed the American Bookplate Collectors association (or something like that) but they haven't been responsive. They used to published a directory but no longer.

From that site, I gathered that there are artists that specialize in designing bookplates and having them printed. That's what I'd like to have for my hardbacks.

As for the paperbacks, I'm going to have a small red stamp created with my name, etc. That's the easy part.

You should browse the blog Bookplate Junkie for ideas and for several current artists taking commissions.

Thanks! That's very helpful; I'll check it out.

#SomeGuyInVirginia: If you're successful, could you perhaps post your results here? I would maybe also be interested in commissioning a bookplate.

Will do, J. May take a few months to get it turned around, I'm getting slammed with stuff right now and booksplates are pretty low on my wishlist. I'll post findings/interesting leads as they happen, though.

Not to be negative, but putting a bookplate in a highly collectible book can lower it's value if you ever decide to sell it later. It is one of the nicest ways to personalize your books though. You might just want to put them in books that you would be willing to lend out, instead of in expensive signed first editions, etc.

That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought about it consciously, but I wasn’t going to put them in books that I knew were valuable. I’ve also checked out bookplates for sale on eBay and always wondered if the sellers removed them from books or were they found loose and put up for sale that way. I’m opposed to tearing books apart for their prints, etc., so I’d never want to do anything that would jeopardize a book down the road- another good reason to not use them in valuable books.

{{James Keenan{{,{ American Artists of the Bookplate: 1970-1990.

You might try the folks over at www.etsy.com. I know there are a lots of letter press printers there who take special orders, and suspect that it wouldn't be hard to find someone to make you set of bookplates.

>11 sskwire: Doh! That's a perfect idea, thanks.