01In the range since 2011
Raster 120 Notebook, A5
CHF 42.005 mm grid · Slate
In stock · ships ThursdayOpen 01
Werkstatt · Bahnhofstrasse 14 · Aarau
Eleven people,one room,twelve things.
Rasterwerk began in 1998 as a trade bindery doing other people's work. In 2011 we stopped taking commissions, cut the range to twelve items and have printed the same grid ever since.
- Founded
- 1998
- People
- 11
- Items
- 12
- Batch
- 300
Bench 3 and the press room, Thursday morning01
The room decides the range
There are four benches, one Heidelberg cylinder, a sewing frame and a standing press. That is what sets the catalogue: if an item cannot be made at those four benches in four days, we do not sell it.
- Bench 1
- Print and dry · 2 people
- Bench 2
- Fold, gather, knock up · 3 people
- Bench 3
- Sewing frame · 2 people
- Bench 4
- Casing, pressing, numbering · 3 people
- Front
- Counter and packing · 1 person
02
How a new item gets in
Four tests. An item has to pass all four, and something already in the twelve has to come out.
01
Use it for a year
Somebody in the room carries the prototype every day for twelve months and writes down what breaks.
Always running02
Make 30 by hand
If the thirty are not identical at the bench, the design is wrong rather than the binder.
Four weeks03
Price it honestly
Materials, hours and the press, times two. If the number embarrasses us at the counter it does not go in.
One afternoon04
Take one out
Twelve is the whole range. Something is withdrawn, and we keep repairing it for everyone who already owns it.
The hard part03
The year, counted
- Notebooks bound
- 14 200
- in 2025, across items 01 – 04
- Rebinds returned
- 318
- repaired at cost, median 19 days
- Paper, one grade
- 6.4 t
- from one mill, 110 km away
- Items withdrawn
- 7
- since 2011, all still repaired
04
Three we have never changed
Same paper, same board, same price in real terms as the day they went in.
05
The counter is open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Bahnhofstrasse 14, two minutes from Aarau station. You can look at all twelve, write on the paper and watch a block go into the press.