The Designer’s Toolbox: Charlotte Wainwright

I use these DIY combs to manipulate the floating marbling paint, pulling patterns across the surface to create traditional patterns such as ‘nonpareil’ or ‘peacock’. I make my own combs with a combination of wood, board, and upholstery pins or bamboo kebab skewers. I love the concept of creating a handmade tool as part of the creative process, and the combs are very satisfying to make.

Each of the pins need to be roughly the same height, because I want them to drag through the surface of the water. I have a library of combs of different lengths (some run across the length of my marbling tray, others across the width), and they have different spacing between the pins. Using multiple combs in the same pattern means that I can create even more intricate designs, and the end result is always a surprise. I build on the knowledge and experience I have, but I’m always experimenting and trying to create something new.

My collection of antique brass type is probably my most prized possession in the studio. They’re traditional old typefaces, and I use them for adding hot-foiled lettering onto books or boxes. I acquired these three beautiful wooden cabinets from a lovely old bookbinder who was retiring, along with some hand-lettering tools. They’re probably well over 100 years old, so it’s an amazing piece of history. I love to imagine all the books they’ve been used to title, and all the skilled bookbinders who have used them over the years. I’ve had them for about ten years, and I wonder who will be using them in a hundred years’ time.

I love what’s inside the cabinets and the history they hold, but I also love them as pieces of furniture. The wood has aged beautifully, the knobs are mismatched and there are traces of where the previous labels used to be. I do have a lot of modern kit around too, but it’s lovely to have some older items with such a rich heritage. They are relics from a time when hand bookbinding was more of an industry than it is now, when everything is easily made by machines.

As soon as summer starts coming to an end, I can’t wait to get back in my comfy winter boots. I think these ones are four years old now; I also have a brown pair that are similarly paint-splattered from my marbling sessions at the studio. Bookbinding and marbling are not sit-down jobs, so it’s important to have comfortable, practical shoes that can handle life in the workshop.

A particularly good day will start with a walk through Walthamstow Village, on the way to my studio, to pick up a bit of breakfast or lunch for later in the day. I absolutely love the fresh smells of citrus and tomatoes that waft down Orford Road from Bora & Sons greengrocers. Today I picked up a grapefruit and some tomatoes for lunch.

The shop has such a rich, inspiring colour palette too. I’m always drawn to colour, which you can see in my work, and I often use my phone to snap quick pictures of colour combinations I find when I’m out and about.

I always have one of my marble notebooks on the go, with chaotic jottings and measurements of boxes, books and projects I’m currently working on. They are lovely and tactile, and it’s nice to use something that I’ve made myself. I choose the line spacing and the type of paper, the cotton covers are digitally printed from my marble designs and I bind them myself, so in a way it feels like an extension of my brain inside a notebook.

I have really fond memories of visiting the London Graphic Centre when I was studying graphic design at Central Saint Martins. I’d spend long lunch breaks testing out pens and choosing sketchbooks and paper, and going back now still brings back that same feeling.

I have always loved their Uni Pin fine liner drawing pens, right from the early days when I studied architecture in Glasgow. They’re amazing to draw with, but I also love writing my daily to-do lists with them. They’re the kind of pen that helps your handwriting dance happily across the page.

One of my favourite places to buy materials is Russell & Chapple in Bloomsbury, where I get these hog fan brushes that I use for marbling. It’s such a lovely, traditional artists’ shop. It dates back to 1770, and is full of specialist brushes, papers, paints and all sorts of things you don’t tend to find in more general art shops. It has a real sense of charm and history, and it’s always a special treat to go there.

A good-quality, stiff, natural-bristle fan brush is ideal to get an even splatter of paint when I’m flinging it across the marbling tray, so these brushes are perfect. (These are made from hog bristles, hence the name.)

I’m lucky to work in an amazing little studio in Walthamstow, tucked away at the end of a quiet, leafy road. The glazed brick columns at the front of my studio were made in traditional wood-fired kilns in Oxfordshire by H.G. Matthews. I love that the walls are crafted by hand, reflecting the nature of the work that goes on inside. I’m surrounded by wonderful, inspiring creatives in our shared studio – artists, designers, illustrators, writers – and it’s lovely to have friends to sound out ideas and share lunch breaks with.

Charlotte Wainwright is a creative bookbinder and marbling artist based in London. Her work spans a variety of projects, from one-off rebinds to marbled notebooks and collections for Tate, Liberty and the Saatchi Gallery. Recent projects include The Rebound for the BBC. She is currently writing her first book, a step-by-step guide to decorative bookbinding techniques featuring at-home rebinding projects, which will be published by Herbert Press, Bloomsbury in 2028.

Follow Charlotte on Instagram @wainwrightbookbinding