Decorative Paper
Though many techniques can be used to decorate paper, the most commonly used methods in book binding are paste, marbling, and block printing. Decorative papers can be used for the covers or endpapers and encompass an endless variety of patterns. In addition to decorative papers used on the cover or endpapers, edges of the text block can be decorated in gold, marbling, or with patterns pressed into the pages to create an indent called gauffering.
Hieroglyphic tales
Paste papers are created by manipulating a wet paste of pigment mixed with starch. Directly after the paste is applied to the paper, the papermaker adds designs with a brush, sponge, or even a finger, giving the paper its characteristic three-dimensional appearance.
In the seventeenth century, paper marbling techniques typically used in Asia and the Islamic World were introduced to Europe and became a popular decoration for endpapers. Marbled papers are created by suspending pigment on the surface of a bath and then touching the paper to the surface.
Designs pressed into the edges of the text block are referred to as gauffering and are almost always done on top of gilt edges. These designs are created in the same way, and often with the same tools, as blind and gold tooling.
The sonnets of William Shakespeare
The binder used the same metal tool to create the gauffering in the fore-edge that she used to create the gold tooling on the cover. This creates a beautiful symmetry, even though the tools were used to create different patterns.