Dragon Scale Armor Cultural and Creative Product

Dragon Scale Binding is an outstanding representation of ancient Chinese bookbinding craftsmanship, often praised as the 'living fossil of bookbinding.' It combines the advantages of scroll and codex formats-when rolled up, it forms a neat scroll, but when unrolled, the pages overlap and lift like scales. When the wind blows, the scales flutter, creating a unique visual effect described as 'dragons swimming within the book, the book riding on dragon wings,' blending practicality with artistic appeal.

In today's era of rapidly advancing information technology, the way people read books has changed dramatically. Dragon Scale Bindings now mostly appear in the form of cultural and creative products, and their content is often produced using digital printing technology. While the core structure remains unchanged, the external form has undergone many changes, and the layout design based on aesthetic expression has become increasingly diverse.

This article explores the research and development of digital print Dragon Scale Binding cultural and creative works from the perspectives of form, layout design, and printing production.

Left-Twist and Right-Twist

The basis for determining the form of Dragon Scale Binding

When a long scroll is unrolled or stored, if the rotation axis is on the left, it is a left-twist; conversely, if on the right, it is a right-twist. As a form of long-scroll binding, Dragon Scale Binding also requires determining whether it is left- or right-twist, which is the basic starting point for studying its form.

Traditional Chinese binding forms can roughly be divided into scrolls, folds, and flip-through types. Dragon Scale Binding is a type of 'scroll.' The earliest scrolls were bamboo slips and silk books, later evolving into paper scrolls. During development, scrolls were divided into axle-less and axle types. Bamboo slips were axle-less, with the leftmost slip as the axis, rolled to the right for storage. Early silk books were folded for storage and later developed into scrolls. Paper scrolls also went through an axle-less form, usually for short texts, simply rolled into tubes after writing. For longer or more valuable texts, an axle was added on the left side, forming a scroll. Considering the traditional Chinese habit of holding the scroll in the left hand and writing with the right, all scroll types except Dragon Scale Binding are left-twist, while only Dragon Scale Binding is right-twist. The only confirmed existing Dragon Scale Binding artifact in China is the 'Tang Manuscript Wang Renxu's Corrected Rhymes' (hereinafter referred to as 'Tang Manuscript Rhymes') housed

in the Palace Museum in Beijing, as shown in Figure 1.Figure 1: "Tang Manuscript Wang Renxu's Revised Qieyun"

According to literature and historical records, the "Tang Manuscript Qieyun" is the only recognized physical example of dragon scale binding in China. From Figure 1, you can clearly see that the storage core is on the right end, while the headpiece and label strip are on the back of the left end, which is opposite to the direction of modern scroll storage. Experts have verified that the dragon scale binding form of this collection is not its original form, but was rebound by palace specialists during the Northern Song Dynasty's Xuanhe period, and the original state remains unknown, with no consensus to this day.

The rightward rotation of the "Tang Manuscript Qieyun" is determined by its functional use as a book. Compiled by Wang Renxu in the Tang Dynasty, this book was a rhyme dictionary used to check poetic meter when composing rhyme poems, similar to a modern dictionary for looking up pronunciation. As a reference tool, it needed to allow easy flipping and searching. The main flaw of traditional leftward scrolls is that to check the content, the whole scroll had to be unrolled. In the Yuan Dynasty, Wu Yan mentioned in "Xianju Lu": 'Ancient books are all scrolls; due to the difficulty of rolling and unrolling, they were replaced by folded pages.' This explains that traditional scrolls were replaced by folded and codex formats mainly because opening and storing them was cumbersome. When the manuscript was rebound during the Song Xuanhe period, the leaves were staggered and pasted onto long strips of backing paper for easier browsing. Since the text on the leaves was written from top to bottom and right to left, the leaves had to be pasted sequentially from right to left, with each subsequent leaf placed under the previous one. When storing the finished product, starting from the left end would conflict with the unfolding direction of the leaves. Therefore, the axis had to be placed at the right end of the backing paper, and storage began from the right, forming the rightward-rotating dragon scale binding, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Dragon Scale Binding Structure Diagram

As shown in Figure 2, a single scale leaf is divided into three parts. The area used for sticking and fixing to the backing paper is called the scale root; the part of the following leaf that extends staggered relative to the previous leaf is called the scale mouth (the topmost leaf has no scale mouth); the middle area used for writing text is called the scale surface. The scale surface can be written on one side or both sides. The Tang manuscript "Qieyun" was written on both sides.

Some TV dramas and films set in the Tang Dynasty also feature dragon scale bound manuscripts. For example, the 2025 film "Lychee of Chang'an" shows it twice: in a register of names and in an account book. Both are used in situations requiring frequent reference, similar to a tool book, which objectively reflects the style and use of dragon scale bound works at the time.

Historically, the dragon scale binding format twists to the right, which is opposite to the common roll direction of contemporary scrolls. So, must the right-twist format be used when creating cultural products?

If making a film prop, the right-twist format must be used; if developing cultural products, some flexibility is allowed. Dragon scale binding was originally designed for convenient reference and carrying a large amount of text, with limited space when fully opened, so the backing paper shouldn't be too long. The existing Tang manuscript "Qieyun" has 24 leaves occupying 130mm in backing paper length, showing small size but large capacity. In long scrolls, the dragon scale leaves still have longer portions at the front and back, which I suspect were added when re-bound in the Northern Song period, not original. Therefore, if creating a shorter dragon scale cultural product with a core length under 150mm, you can fully use the right-twist mode to achieve a traditional effect; for longer works, if the first leaf on the right end doesn't need to be on top, you should add auxiliary elements like a headpiece, intro leaf, water gap, and tail piece. From a structural innovation perspective, a left-twist mode can be used, which fits traditional scroll handling and reading standards.

Scale Mouth and Scale Surface

The design focus of dragon scale binding layout

The scale mouth is the part of the bottom leaf that extends due to staggered overlapping in the long scroll format of dragon scale binding; the scale surface is the part between the scale mouth and scale root used for writing. In layout design, deciding the content of the scale mouth and scale surface, and the relationship between them, is a key consideration.

From the Tang manuscript "Qieyun," the scale mouth shows no special content design, mostly left blank, with only edges reinforced, making the book sturdy and easy to flip. The text is concentrated on the scale surface, reflecting its function as a tool book. Similar dragon scale books in foreign collections, such as the French Dunhuang manuscript 2490 (untitled) and the British Dunhuang manuscript S.6349 "Shizhai Xiongji Fa," have binding similar to "Qieyun," and also show special designs at the scale mouth. This shows that historically, the scale mouth was not a design focus. In the past decade, with the revival of dragon scale binding and its status as an intangible cultural heritage, designers have emphasized the scale mouth as an important design element, inspiring various cultural products and the emergence of a new term: Guochao (national trend). For example, in the "2026 Intangible Cultural Heritage Gala" jointly produced by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and CGTN, the representative inheritor of the dragon scale technique in Hangzhou, Zhang Yi, created a dragon scale work (Figure 3 left) in right-twist format. The first leaf on the right and the other leaves' scale mouths together form a complete image. After flipping all leaves to the right, the reverse of the first leaf on the left and the other leaves' reverse scale mouths also form a complete image, with another set of images printed in the middle of the front and back scale surfaces (Figure 3 right).

Figure 3: Zhang Yilong's Dragon Scale Binding Work

Figure 3 shows a piece that represents the main design style of current dragon scale binding cultural and creative works. The puzzle-like arrangement of the scale edges is the first thing you see when the work is laid out flat, while the content on the scales is the second aspect you notice when flipping through the scale leaves. The scale edge puzzle in dragon scale binding is similar to the recently popular book-edge printing, like in Zhejiang Literature & Art Publishing House's "Wang Jiangnan" (Figure 4). It innovates on traditional bookbinding techniques, greatly enhancing its visual appeal and raising the cultural and artistic value of the work.

During the development of dragon scale binding creative works, some pieces focus solely on the scale edge puzzle design while ignoring the content on the scales (sometimes leaving them blank), which goes against the basic nature of dragon scale binding and is just a show of skill. In creative design, both the scale edges and the content on the scales should be treated as equally important. The content on the scales should be related to the scale edges, but not identical. For example, if the scale edge puzzle is a painting, the scale content could be poems by the same author or on the same theme, serving as an interpretation or extension of the puzzle. Or if the scale edge puzzle is a complete horizontal painting, the scale content could use page-style paintings with the same or similar content for layout design. The coexistence of connection and difference is the core idea in designing the scale edges and scale content.

Figure 4 Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, 'Wang Jiangnan'

The width of the scale openings is another issue worth considering. At present, the scale width of dragon scale-themed cultural and creative works tends to be quite narrow, usually not exceeding 2 cm, which aligns with historical facts. In the Tang manuscript "Qie Yun," the scale width is about 1 cm. The biggest advantage of a narrow scale width is that the pages can be arranged densely, allowing for a lot of information. However, this also means that overlapping pages are thicker in the middle and thinner at the ends, and when rolled up, the top and bottom edges may not form a perfect circle, which slightly affects the appearance. Based on this, we can consider two situations when designing the scale width: if the overall length of the scale puzzle is under 1.5 meters, set the scale width to within 2 cm and use a right-handed spiral, which allows the whole work to be displayed even in smaller spaces, while still storing enough information on the scales; if the overall length exceeds 2 meters, set the scale width to 4–5 cm, which increases the spacing between scales, reduces the number of scale pages, decreases the thickness when laid flat, and uses a left-handed spiral. Once finished, it can be partially opened for display, achieving a good visual effect.

Digital Printing

How to realize dragon scale-themed cultural and creative works

Before the widespread use of block-printed thread-bound books, most books were handwritten. As a transitional format from scrolls to folios, dragon-scaled books were also handwritten. Today, with rapidly advancing technology, there are many ways to present text and images. For dragon scale-themed cultural and creative works, digital printing is the best way to realize them.

01

Pre-Press Processing

Dragon scale-themed works rely on assembling scale openings to form a complete image, and the key and challenging part of pre-press work is cutting and segmenting the images for each scale. You need to set an overlap value for adjacent scale pages (Figure 5). The image in the overlapping area 'a' is identical to the same width from the outer edge inward of the previous scale page. During the page mounting process, even if there is slight misalignment, there won't be any blank gaps-this principle is similar to bleed and trapping in printing.

Figure 5: Diagram of overlapping scale edges



In the practical production of dragon scale-themed cultural and creative works, many designers don't preset the overlap of the scale edges (i.e., a=0). This requires extremely high precision during the subsequent process of pasting the scale leaves, increasing the difficulty of after-processing. Even if all the scale leaves are pasted perfectly and the scale image aligns seamlessly, over time, due to the different expansion and contraction rates between the scale leaf paper and the backing paper, 'white gaps' may appear. Therefore, setting the overlap of the scale edges is crucial. Depending on the width of the scale leaves, the value of a can be set between 3–5mm.



02

Pre-press Production



Currently, dragon scale-themed cultural and creative works are mainly produced using inkjet printing on Xuan paper. The paper is often roll-type micro-spray Xuan paper with an ink-lock coating on the surface. The ink is mostly weak solvent pigment ink. For better color saturation, weak solvent dye ink can be used, but note that prints using dye ink will fade under prolonged light exposure and are not waterproof. During printing on roll Xuan paper, it is important to avoid wrinkles, smudges, or torn lines, ensure clean cutting, smooth edges, and no distortion in printed patterns. Only by meeting these conditions can high-quality dragon scale-themed works be produced.



03

Post-press Processing



After printing the scale leaves, further processes are needed, including folding, pasting, trimming, backing paper mounting, edge wrapping, and rolling. Each step requires a high level of hands-on skill. For folding, pasting the scale leaves, and adhering them to the backing paper, you can use mounting hot-melt adhesive film, bond it with a heated iron, and then rapidly cool and set it with a cold iron to prevent uneven deformation in the finished product. After completing edge wrapping, pasting the roll labels, and sticking the scale leaves, perform a final hot press on the entire piece at 80–90°C using a hot-press mounting machine, then attach the bottom and top rods to obtain a high-quality finished product.