One of the members of the Travelers board of directors was stepping down after many years of working with the company and Carolyn Porter (of Porterfolio) was asked to come up with something special as a parting gift.

Carolyn had worked with me in the past on a presentation piece for Nelson Mandela and called me again to work with her on this project. She designed the book and worked with me to determine the structure of the box. 

The 18 page book is printed, letterpress, in 3 colors and is quarter bound in red leather with custom made marbled end sheets.

The modified clamshell box is covered in a gray silk cloth (as is the book) and is held shut with a one-of-a-kind stainless steel closure.

At the end of the journey we were all pleased with the outcome and were glad to have taken the road less traveled by.

And that has made all the difference.

Because the edition number was fairly large, it turned out that it was nearly impossible to get a quantity of marbled sheets made to spec.

So I learned to marble paper.

I gotta’ tell you that there are many things in this world that have been intentionally invented by people who have combined chemicals and processes with an eye open to a specific end result. Paper marbleing is not one of them. Ox gall (the bile of an ox) is used to spread pigments onto the surface of a mixture of water and carragheenan (a seaweed derivative used widely today to thicken milkshakes). The pigments are then spotted, swirled and combed into complex patterns before being transfered to sheets of paper that have been coated with alum.

Whew.

The first time that somebody did all this had to be some sort of freakish accident. Now it is simply beautiful.

This project used leather, black walnut and aluminum (which was milled, bead-blasted, etched and anodized). A whole lot of work went into making it look simple.