In the middle of a discussion about the traditional techniques of fine bookbinding, Rob Shepherd takes out an insistently bleeping iPhone from his jacket pocket and arranges a meeting for later that day. The incongruous clash of modern and traditional technologies is not lost on Shepherd. "I suppose that's what makes us different," he explains smiling.

　　Different is an accurate word for Shepherds Bookbinders, the company he set up in 1988. Although it has all the hallmarks of a traditional outfit - the cramped workshop and an allegiance to techniques honed by craftsmen over centuries - it also boasts a brand new boutique-style Mayfair store, a professional website, a diverse branded product range and a high-flying city lawyer as its chairman. This is craft for the 21st century - a modern business sensibility layered onto an artisan core.

　　Shepherd's first attempts at bookbinding were in night classes during the 1970s. He was an avid collector of secondhand books, and a friend at Camberwell College introduced him to the course that would allow him to repair his precious collection. It quickly became a passion, so much so that he was soon fixing books in his lunch breaks. Before long he built up enough confidence to tout for business.

　　"One day, I went into a bookshop in Piccadilly and told them I repaired books," he explains. "They gave me a box of them to repair. They were leather bindings, which I had no idea what to do with. But I took them into my evening class and learnt how to repair them. It was the 1970s, a boom period for the book trade and it was very easy to get work. So I set up my own book restoration business and prospered."

　　Humble beginnings

　　This initial ad-hoc approach matured and, in 1988, backed by private investment, Shepherd set-up his own store in Holborn, London. Shepherds Bookbinders was born as a limited company, but this was not the culmination of his ambition, it was just the beginning.

　　Over the next 20 years, Shepherd expanded his business through acquisitions. The 2003 purchase of Falkiner Fine Papers, a supplier of fine art papers and bookbinding equipment, broadened the company's offering and added another site, in Southampton Row, London, to the property portfolio. It was a move that made perfect business sense. However, the 1998 buy-out of renowned fine bookbinders Zaehnsdorf and Sangorski & Sutcliffe, was more than just a business decision - it was the fulfilment of a long-held ambition.

　　"Sangorski & Sutcliffe were the Rolls Royce and Bentley of fine binding," says Shepherd. "Ever since I went to college, I had this dream of owning Sangorski & Sutcliffe. In 1998, that dream was realised. It was like someone interested in cars being able to buy Rolls Royce, that's how it felt. They were always the pinnacle of fine binding. They had such history and it was an incredibly proud moment."

　　But with this history came responsibility to reproduce the standard of binding that made the company, founded in 1901, famous - after all, its binders produced the world's most ambitious binding ever created for the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. It incorporated more than a thousand precious and semi-precious jewels, thousands of separate leather onlays and took the company two years to finish. Sadly, it was aboard the Titanic, en route to be shown in the US, and sank with the liner in 1912. A modern reworking of the binding, using the same book block, but with a completely redesigned binding, is one of Shepherd's favourite projects, not least because it sold for £26,000 at Sotheby's - quite an endorsement of Shepherd's craftsmans' skills.

　　Concessions to modernity

　　Shepherd and his team achieved this level of skill by using the techniques binders have used for hundreds of years, although there have been some modern concessions. "There are a few modern tools we have looked at to make the job easier, such as a leather splitter," he reveals. "But even a leather splitter only does half the job, as you still have to pare the leather by hand. Also, things like gold finishing are always going to be done by hand. I have two Sangorski & Sutcliffe gold finishers and I don't know of another bindery with a gold finisher. They just don't exist."

　　Worryingly, it is not just the skill of gold finishing that is dying out; bookbinding as a craft is fast disappearing. Shepherd explains that those left in the industry are either old companies, struggling to remain viable in an increasingly automated world, or individuals setting up very small businesses, often working from home, with little money or talent for marketing. Finding people that still have the traditional skills is a hard task. There is a real danger, therefore, that bookbinding will die out with the current generation of master craftsmen, a problem also facing the wider print industry.

　　This is a subject close to Shepherd's heart. "My fear with training is that if you allow the knowledge of these crafts to disappear with the people who are currently practicing them, then you will never get back to the standards that were there before. To some extent, unfortunately, that has already happened. The courses in bookbinding that do exist now are a complete waste of time from both the student and the employer's point of view. If they bind a book at all, it will probably be part of some small artistic project that teaches them pretty much nothing. 15 years ago, I could go to those colleges and recruit people into real jobs, now there are no students that I can recruit. The colleges are not playing their part and I haven't got time to persuade the education system to do something about it."

　　The next generation

　　Instead, Shepherd has taken the future of bookbinding into his own hands. On the back of two very popular tutorials in bookbinding held in London, he now plans to offer more comprehensive training sessions at the company's new workshop in Wiltshire. To begin with, one-day or weekend sessions in basic bookbinding will be offered, but training in specialist skills will then be added at a later date. The hope is to uncover someone with the passion and commitment, as well as the skill, to take up the career fulltime.

　　Shepherd is confident that any prospective binders will have enough work to do if they do opt for a career in the craft. He cites the recent trend to buy British-made goods of real quality as the main reason to be optimistic about the future. Indeed, he feels small-scale production of high-quality goods is what Britain does best and what it should return to. And he says his clients, who generally come from the wealthier sectors of society, are willing to pay a premium for quality goods. He does not, however, believe bookbinding alone can sustain a profitable business.

　　"Fine binding is the height of what we do," he explains. "But you could not run a business on fine binding alone. You can compare our fine binding to a fashion house producing couture. It isn't what makes their bread and butter money, but it is the pinnacle from which everything else spreads."

　　‘Everything else' encompasses an ever-growing range of products and services. Shepherds already sells fine papers and stationery equipment through its Southampton Row store (formerly the Falkiner Fine Papers site), while completing occasional high-end work for printers, but only when "the client is more concerned with quality than price". It has now also added a range of branded goods, including leather products and bespoke photograph albums, all of which will be made at the new Wiltshire workshop. It is a business strategy that has ensured a healthy return for Shepherds' financial backers and should ensure future profitability in an ever-diminishing sector.

　　And it is a sector Shepherd is determined to keep alive, although his own involvement now mainly consists of designing the bindings rather than making them. The product launches and the stores in London's richest quarters may provide the bulk of Shepherd's story, but it is the company's craftsmanship that catches the eye. This may be one of those instances when you really can judge a book by its cover.