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fanbinding2023-02-03 08:17 pm
sunshine304) wrote in fanbinding2023-02-03 08:17 pm
Fanbinding: Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey"
This was a project I’d originally started as a Christmas gift but then it turned into a birthday gift instead because it became obvious that I would not be able to finish it in time, especially considering it still had to be shipped. But now I can finally post about it. :D
I’m really proud of how this turned out in the end! I think I mentioned a few times that I struggled some with the typesetting because at first, I’d used a .txt file and that one had a lot of weird mistakes in it – but I didn’t have the time to read the whole book! So I got the .epub which was much better. I went and compared it to the cheap Penguin Classics edition I have, just to check for italics etc. It looked all fine, so hopefully there aren’t any mistakes in there, after all. XD
This time around, I used 100g paper instead of 80g. Still the nice ivory Clairfontaine paper that feels like silk and is easy on the eyes. I had decided on an overall purple theme for the book as I’d fallen in love with that aubergine coloured paper I used for the cover. It looked so elegant! Also, dark purple for a gothic romance seemed very fitting, too!
I combined it with the black bookcloth in the end because it was the best-looking option. I do have purple bookcloth, but both colours clashed with the paper, as did the dark blue. I also have dark grey, but that left me not convinced as well, so I settled on black.
In the pic of the book block you can see that I used purple thread, as well. The thickness of the block was really good, 7 signatures plus the thicker paper added up nicely. I was really pleased with it.
Here are two more pics of the separate parts:
The paper for the cover is Efalin paper which comes in several different structures that for example simulate linen. I chose the type Neuleinen (New Linen) where you can see the structure quite well. It comes in over 20 colours and works like a dream! So easy to fold and do nice corners with! I was super happy with it and have several sheets of this colour as well as many other colours. It's a perfect Yunmeng Jiang colour, for one, and I also plan on using it for a book series of five, whenever I'll get to that...
I’d first pondered to use marbled paper or something like that for endpapers, but then scrolled through online shops anyway because I decided that I might want to go for a more floral design, something that could fit the time period. When I saw this paper, I knew that it was perfect!
It’s Carta Varese 100g and even though it’s supposed to be blue, the colour has a tendency towards purple, so this fit the aesthetic super well. It’s also really good quality paper and was easy to handle. so pleased with how neat the edges are! :D
I had decided early on that I wanted to have this kind of black silhouette/cameo graphic on the front. Finding one that I liked was more difficult, though. XD I searched around a lot before settling on this rather simple design. The title frame adds a bit more flourish to it and I put it together in Photoshop.
This was glued onto the cover at the very end, after the book block was already glued in and everything. I had coloured in the frame with silver acrylics for a bit of an extra effect.
I pondered whether to do a spine label and printed out different versions of it before settling on the one you see pictured above. Again, I used acrylics to trace the title.
Overall, the actual binding process worked very well. I don’t think there were any hiccups. The only thing that took me a bit were the labels because I tried some things that at times didn’t turn out so well. XD
Now for some inside pictures:
Yes, the title picture design is taken from a French special edition because I can't do these kinds of graphics (yet). I changed the colours to fit my theme and added the title in my chosen font (Augusta my beloved!).
The frontispiece is an original illustration for one of the English “Northanger Abbey” editions. There are more illustrations for that edition, but the quality was bad most of the time, so I left them out. It’s a shame that I couldn’t find more of them in a nice resolution, but at least there was this one that made a lovely frontispiece!
I really like the font for the body, Constantia. It runs a bit wider than my usual go-to Times New Roman and is nice to look at.
I died a bit because this story has over 30 chapters and so I had to go and do the initials at the beginning of every chapter because I haven’t found an option in Open Office to do this automatically. *sigh* So. Many. Chapters. T_T
But I really love how the title font and the ornament work together! I chose this particular ornament (it’s in the font Old Retro Labels) because on first glance it looks a bit like bats. XD
Well, and then there was the little problem that the story ended on a left page and I was like, “There should be an illustration on the right page now.” I thought that would look so nice as an ending.
But I couldn’t find an original illustration for the ending at all. And some old paintings from the time period also didn’t seem fitting… So, I went to look for stills from the movie. *g*
There was a good still from the kiss and I decided to tinker around in Photoshop with it until I was pleased. I used some art filters and changed the colours of the background (it was a very green picture) to again fit the aesthetic, and desaturated it a bit.
It’s not completely what I’d wanted for the picture, but as I couldn’t find something that fit my vision exactly this is the next-best thing. :D
I think this book turned out really, really well. I was kinda sad to send it off. XD But my friend loved it and that’s the most important part! Perhaps I’ll make one for me at some point, too, but at the moment I have some other things planned.
I’m really proud of how this turned out in the end! I think I mentioned a few times that I struggled some with the typesetting because at first, I’d used a .txt file and that one had a lot of weird mistakes in it – but I didn’t have the time to read the whole book! So I got the .epub which was much better. I went and compared it to the cheap Penguin Classics edition I have, just to check for italics etc. It looked all fine, so hopefully there aren’t any mistakes in there, after all. XD
This time around, I used 100g paper instead of 80g. Still the nice ivory Clairfontaine paper that feels like silk and is easy on the eyes. I had decided on an overall purple theme for the book as I’d fallen in love with that aubergine coloured paper I used for the cover. It looked so elegant! Also, dark purple for a gothic romance seemed very fitting, too!
I combined it with the black bookcloth in the end because it was the best-looking option. I do have purple bookcloth, but both colours clashed with the paper, as did the dark blue. I also have dark grey, but that left me not convinced as well, so I settled on black.
In the pic of the book block you can see that I used purple thread, as well. The thickness of the block was really good, 7 signatures plus the thicker paper added up nicely. I was really pleased with it.
Here are two more pics of the separate parts:
The paper for the cover is Efalin paper which comes in several different structures that for example simulate linen. I chose the type Neuleinen (New Linen) where you can see the structure quite well. It comes in over 20 colours and works like a dream! So easy to fold and do nice corners with! I was super happy with it and have several sheets of this colour as well as many other colours. It's a perfect Yunmeng Jiang colour, for one, and I also plan on using it for a book series of five, whenever I'll get to that...
I’d first pondered to use marbled paper or something like that for endpapers, but then scrolled through online shops anyway because I decided that I might want to go for a more floral design, something that could fit the time period. When I saw this paper, I knew that it was perfect!
It’s Carta Varese 100g and even though it’s supposed to be blue, the colour has a tendency towards purple, so this fit the aesthetic super well. It’s also really good quality paper and was easy to handle. so pleased with how neat the edges are! :D
I had decided early on that I wanted to have this kind of black silhouette/cameo graphic on the front. Finding one that I liked was more difficult, though. XD I searched around a lot before settling on this rather simple design. The title frame adds a bit more flourish to it and I put it together in Photoshop.
This was glued onto the cover at the very end, after the book block was already glued in and everything. I had coloured in the frame with silver acrylics for a bit of an extra effect.
I pondered whether to do a spine label and printed out different versions of it before settling on the one you see pictured above. Again, I used acrylics to trace the title.
Overall, the actual binding process worked very well. I don’t think there were any hiccups. The only thing that took me a bit were the labels because I tried some things that at times didn’t turn out so well. XD
Now for some inside pictures:
Yes, the title picture design is taken from a French special edition because I can't do these kinds of graphics (yet). I changed the colours to fit my theme and added the title in my chosen font (Augusta my beloved!).
The frontispiece is an original illustration for one of the English “Northanger Abbey” editions. There are more illustrations for that edition, but the quality was bad most of the time, so I left them out. It’s a shame that I couldn’t find more of them in a nice resolution, but at least there was this one that made a lovely frontispiece!
I really like the font for the body, Constantia. It runs a bit wider than my usual go-to Times New Roman and is nice to look at.
I died a bit because this story has over 30 chapters and so I had to go and do the initials at the beginning of every chapter because I haven’t found an option in Open Office to do this automatically. *sigh* So. Many. Chapters. T_T
But I really love how the title font and the ornament work together! I chose this particular ornament (it’s in the font Old Retro Labels) because on first glance it looks a bit like bats. XD
Well, and then there was the little problem that the story ended on a left page and I was like, “There should be an illustration on the right page now.” I thought that would look so nice as an ending.
But I couldn’t find an original illustration for the ending at all. And some old paintings from the time period also didn’t seem fitting… So, I went to look for stills from the movie. *g*
There was a good still from the kiss and I decided to tinker around in Photoshop with it until I was pleased. I used some art filters and changed the colours of the background (it was a very green picture) to again fit the aesthetic, and desaturated it a bit.
It’s not completely what I’d wanted for the picture, but as I couldn’t find something that fit my vision exactly this is the next-best thing. :D
I think this book turned out really, really well. I was kinda sad to send it off. XD But my friend loved it and that’s the most important part! Perhaps I’ll make one for me at some point, too, but at the moment I have some other things planned.