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# Why I Started a Bookbinding Studio Named After a Moth.
- URL: https://tropicalswallowtailbindery.org/coming-soon/
- Published: 2026-06-25T22:30:30.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-03T07:51:05.000Z
- Description: For years, I'd been looking for a creative outlet.
- Author: Alina
- Tags: Announcements

Bookbinding came to me subtly, out of my ordinary journaling routine — I ran out of my Kaison notebook and wanted something personal instead: something whose final look would carry the journey it took to make it. With a few basics, I began binding my first journal, and I never went back to the books over the shelves. There's absolutely no judgement with reaching for that one. But this is more about engaging with my personality and I'll admit, approached the right way, it can be something close to a spiritual ritual by inducing nature's essences into the practice of journaling and bookbinding.

This is an independent bindery and creative publication, built around an endangered craft with a small community where I'm based. When I tell people I'm fond of papermaking and bookbinding, there's like a big question mark hovering over their faces. Recently, I asked the woman working at a local art gallery's gift shop how the handmade books from a fellow binder were selling. Her answer: *"It takes some time to move. Good luck."*

I brave it out with Zampa to share and cultivate the act of journaling, continuing an ancient tradition of bookbinding and papermaking to preserve the craftmanship, so it can benefits people who are in a self-discovery, creative, realign, let go, and healing journey. I believe what we write *on* matters as much as what we write *about* — the medium of manifestation, or simply, a sweet escape from the noise. I hope more people will want to make these tools as their personal framework to indulge in this part of life, and find joy in the process of cultivating this practice. The end goal, not limited to: becoming a more satisfied being.

## The name

There's a moth native to Southeast Asia called *Lyssa zampa* — commonly known as the tropical swallowtail moth. Every year, for as long as anyone here can remember, they mass-emerge and turn up in the city, clinging to the odd corners, perch on apartment's walls, chased out from the jungle dry spell ever so often. Superstitiously, if you see it came to the house, they can camouflage for the dead ones who came to visit.

One [study](https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/3/589?ref=tropicalswallowtailbindery.org) found the moth showing up in cities far more than expected — oddly, since its host tree grows only deep in mature forest and isn't found in urban areas at all — and concluded the moths are simply chasing the light, disoriented during migration looking for a new host plant. I like to view this similarly to my journey in searching for a little bit of meaning in this world. I knew I had an artistical in me that needs to be let out and the path was often cloudy, so clear blue skies are scarce moments while the crooked system overwhelms non-baby-boomer like me. I believe that we're all chasing the light, even when we don't know it. I too drawn to lights, I too drawn to migrate to a better place. 

## Two things, really

The first is resources. This is where you'll find bookbinding-related information — pieces of the history around bookbinding, since humans from every continent like to fight over who came up with what. We'll get into that soon. I also want to give you a useful list of all the types of bookbinding stitches and the different book covers you could explore. I dare to promise, but who knows.

The second is the shop. Handmade paper, made the slow way — pulped, dried and pressed, including a botanical series that presses real petals and leaves into every sheet. Every piece sold goes straight back into keeping this bindery running: materials, tools, the next post.

## Why

This idea serves as a nostalgia for a life people used to have before the Industrial Revolution and the vast World Wide Web. Those weren't easy eras, I'm sure. But some of what they practiced had romantic elements, and real craftsmanship — genuine product in a way that's hard to manufacture now.

Call it a polite criticism of hard tech — of how brutally, at speed, it questions our existence. Every notification is a small vote for somewhere else, some other tab, some other thought that isn't the one in front of you. What's left to save of our minds is not necessarily pure but still holds true. And it must be given the necessary right to flow unspiked. 

The moth identity shows a creation of the dark hours, methodically still live the sun of a day. They are misguided by city lights because what's real and what's not, instead of being in the natural habitat. In the same way, humans are attracted to the cleverness of a vibrant city, where we confuse capitalism with civilization. I believe if this space serves value well enough, you'll be willing to subscribe because you think and feel aligned, and you want to see this exist.

So — that's Zampa. A space for people who gets the idea of fine, visual craft, for you who ever stared at a blank page long enough to finally fill it, for the meaning seekers and for the unlabelled who simply passing by. None of it needs to make perfect sense to you yet. It didn't fully make sense to me either, the day I ran out of my outlet to scribble messy thoughts on and just started to play around in creating. 

For now, the easiest way to stay close to this is to subscribe. It costs nothing, and it means the next issue, the next post finds you without needing an algorithm's permission first. If you'd rather just read along quietly, that's welcome too.

Thanks for being here.