210x210mm (8.25x8.25") Casebound Books
Cover onto BRI4009 Mokka with Gold Foiling to outer.
Wrapped over greyboard case
2x 4pp Endpapers printed onto 170gsm Uncoated FSC Certified
112 inside pages onto 170gsm Silk FSC Certified (14mm spine)
Printed in full colour throughout
Trimmed, collated and case bound
Between The River is a 210 x 210mm coffee table photobook by Lucy Franzen-Bales, created as a visual love letter to St Paul, Minnesota. Through seasonal colour, portraits and quiet details, it traces life in the neighbourhoods that sit between river and city. Our team worked with Lucy and Christopher Bales to turn their carefully designed InDesign layout into a richly printed, clothbound hardback that feels at home on any coffee table.
“Thank you all so much for your hard work!”
This square hardback is made for slow browsing. The photographs move from archival postcard imagery of St Paul’s riverfront into intimate scenes of streets, gardens and the people who live there.
Full white margins give every image room to breathe, so the reader can linger on soft snow, summer greens and deep autumn oranges without distraction. The result is a calm, immersive photobook that invites St Paul residents and fans to recognise their city from fresh angles.
Explore our hardback book printing options.
We produced Between The River as a premium casebound book at 210 x 210mm – a modern square format that suits landscape spreads and portrait images equally well.
The cover is wrapped in Wicotex Brillianta BRI4009 Mokka book cloth, a deep brown that feels warm and traditional in the hand. Gold foiling to the front and spine adds a subtle shimmer, catching the light without shouting. Inside, printed endpapers on 170gsm uncoated stock introduce the project with vivid full-bleed artwork before the main sequence begins.
For the 112 inside pages we chose 170gsm silk. It’s a substantial yet flexible paper that supports full colour printing beautifully, keeping detail in shadows and skies while still allowing easy page turns.
On the cover, a single foiled line winds across the brown cloth like a river, framing the title set in small, centred capitals. It’s minimalist, but instantly communicates the book’s focus on place and flow.
Open the case and you hit a real “wow” moment: full-bleed vintage riverfront imagery across the printed endpapers, followed by a graphic postcard design that nods to the city’s history of correspondence and travel. From there, the edit settles into a measured pace of single images and pairs – shadows on siding, a figure half-hidden by leaves, snow-blanketed paths leading the eye towards downtown.
Across the sequence, the colour narrative is strong: lush summer greens, fiery autumn trees and pale winter light create a sense of time passing along the same slice of landscape.
Plan your own photobook printing project with sizes and paper ideas.
Christopher first got in touch for quotes on both digital and litho casebound options, weighing up 210mm square versus a larger 9" x 9" format and paper weights from 130gsm to 170gsm silk. Cost was more important than turnaround, especially with international shipping to St Paul in the mix, so we explored multiple price points and courier services side by side.
Once Lucy had the book laid out in InDesign, our team pre-flighted a work-in-progress PDF, checking bleed, image resolution and the flow from endpapers into the main text block. We also talked through how fine foil type behaves on a textured cloth, agreeing to use a more hard-wearing gold foil so the cover title would hold its detail while still accepting a little natural “flecking” in the letterforms.
Because the project was US-based, a hard copy proof was essential. We produced a printed-cover proof of the full book first, then moved into the cloth-and-foil run once everyone was confident in the colour and pacing. Timelines were planned carefully around our Christmas closure so the schedule stayed transparent and stress-free.
Throughout the process, our account team acted as a single point of contact for spec options, quoting and file-setup questions, making a UK–US project feel straightforward. We suggested the upgrade to 170gsm silk and printed endpapers to better support Lucy’s rich colour palette and to give the book extra presence as a coffee table object.
On the technical side we checked the InDesign export, reassured the team about the bleed between endpapers and first text pages, and explained in plain language what to expect from foiling onto a textured cloth. Our online proofing step and hard copy sample gave the photographer confidence that subtle tones – snow, skin, evening skies – would reproduce as intended before committing to the full print run.
Read our hardback book set-up guide before exporting your InDesign files.
