What I am doing here by typesetting this novel and binding it with my hand, I am making a bespoke physical form for it. However, it is entirely a personal and passion project. What I am doing is a form of fan binding.
Artists engage in fan binding—publishing in extremely limited edition fannish works, including fanfiction, meta, original fic, zines and other works. Most works are made in handmade editions of one or two copies.
The design process of fan binding, through which physical, printed copies of fan fiction works are created is quite different from commercial book design. These are often bespoke, samizdat, singular objects that cannot usually be mass-produced, and include unique hand-bound objects for the designer’s own affective, aesthetic pleasure. Fanbinding suggests durability and preservation, and printed objects can be transformative works in themselves: designed, typeset, and perhaps featuring artwork, maps or other specifically created front/back matter and illustrations. Readers of these born-digital works may produce these in reaction to the fact that texts are published purely in digital, intangible forms, finding themselves craving the tangible, haptic properties of books. There are many design decisions involved in curating fanworks in a beautiful physical form, and it is interesting how fans go about making those choices.
Fanbinding is a crafting movement where individuals hand-make and bind physical copies of their favourite online works. The trend exploded on TikTok and Instagram, with many users taking requests and orders for fan favourites. Creators like omfgreylo are at the forefront of the movement, creating beautiful and elaborate print editions for bookshelves.
In most cases, these fan-made prints violate the author's copyright if any profit is made from it. For this reason, I am not making these books for profit, this project is entirely out of my love for the book and its story.
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