Fanbind: Brooklyn by togina (@toli-a)
I like tiny books, and about a year ago, wanting to do more of them (and specifically, tiny books that were not written by me), I asked @auntiesuze for her favorite fic under 20k, because Suze is awesome and deserves nice things. Suze came back with Brooklyn by togina (@toli-a), and after getting permission to bind it, I got started.
(And then in the manner of all procrastinators everywhere, I got distracted, and then stuff happened, and other binds happened, and then I found the perfect paper for the cover ever, and then I messed up the measurements and sulked for a couple of weeks until I figured out how to fix it, and then I got back on track because it was @fanartfrenzy and this worked for the square "create art for a moment full of love in a fic". Love of story and love of fandom friend and Love Wins and hey, there's a lot of love going around!)
Do not ask me how many times I not only printed this project, but actually bound this project before getting to the final version. Just don’t. Let’s say I have lots of textblocks for testing things on now. (Not a bad thing!)
There’s a beautiful mock-up of the movie poster from the story, which I thought about using in some form, and decided to go in a different direction, not because it’s not a great poster (it really, really is), but because the size I’m doing probably wouldn’t lend well to shrinking down that picture. Plus, I wanted the design to be mine, you know? I did, however, try to pick a font for the title that echoed the font used on the poster, without copying it.
I’m particularly fond of the cover page, and the skyline of Brooklyn stretching from one side to the other. I printed in letter-sized octavo, because small and cute is small and cute.
The cover paper is from Aitoh Origami, which I absolutely love; the paper is gorgeous and has a slight texture to it (and is ridiculously reasonably priced for the quality and the fact that it’s handmade in Nepal). I did a little touch-up on it—originally, it’s black ink on cream paper, no color. I loved the lines and the way they look a little like a subway map. I used my son’s colored pencils and markers to add the rainbow flag colors, in a scattered sort of non-pattern, to give it some subtle dimension. I probably could have colored in more of it, but I really like how it turned out.
There’s two endpapers; they’re both from Joanns (RIP). One is a diagonal with rainbow colors, the other has a floral print and is slightly more textured. It also claims to be from India, so this is an international book from the inside-out.
But I did mention trouble. I’m not sure how I messed up the measurement when cutting the board for the spine, but I made it too wide—wide enough that it would have ended up being quite a bit wider than the book itself once complete. And unfortunately, I didn’t figure this out until after I’d assembled the cover and used up half the paper already.
Then I figured out that if I had just one more signature, it’d even out. One signature for a book this size was about 1500 words. OKAY. So back I went to togina’s AO3 page, where I found her story Cousins*, which is just under 1500 words. One very fast print-and-sewing job later, and I had one more signature. It’s the flip of the book, like a secret present for Suze to find. I didn’t have enough of the original rainbow print endpaper, so instead I chose some floral paper with the same color scheme.
*And I realize, as I’m typing this up, that the actual title is “Cousin”, singular. Oops. I’m not reprinting again and none of you can make me do it. If togina is really annoyed, I’ll bind any story she likes as apology.
When it came time to case the book… I made another discovery. I hadn’t originally planned on head/end bands, but after having done a whole bunch of books with them in the meantime, not having them looked… just wrong. So I quickly added head- and endbands, cased in the textblock… and finished off the book.
Anyway, that’s the book, I hope Suze and togina both love it, and thank you for reading!
