Four decades at the bench

GÜNALP is a second-generation leather bindery in Istanbul. Since 1978 we have specialised in genuine-leather, thermo-leather and quarter-leather bindings, deep hand embossing, hot foil and art-gilt edges, the classical vocabulary of Turkish bookbinding, produced to a consistent industrial standard.

What began as a single bench is now a workshop that crafts the leather covers of Qur'ans and scripture, collected works and special editions, and designs the presentation boxes that carry them. Casing-in, mounting the cover onto the printed book block, remains with your printer or binder; we produce the covers they mount. The presses are still hand-operated, the patterns still set by eye, but registration, colour and lead times are held to the tolerances a publisher's programme demands.