Breadcat Books

When I first read this fic, the sexy sparring scene with the image of Obi-wan's lightsaber locked against Anakin's modified new arm hit me so hard I knew I had to bind the fic and make that the front cover. The blue and purple color scheme came naturally from there. I chose to theme the design around weapons (lightsabers, Anakin's hand), since that's such an important theme in the fic- who is armed, who is allowed to be armed/trusted with a weapon, who has their guard up, and who is vulnerable. Each "section break" page has two weapons indicative of what Obi-wan and Anakin are wielding in that section respectively, until the final section when both have laid down their arms. Once I'd already made the lightsaber assets I reused them on the chapter heads, back cover, and spine, because the two lightsabers together are so iconic. The gold text on the back cover is meant to be a nod to the famous yellow opening crawls, without being too on the nose.

Materials: covers - 2 mm grey board spine stiffener - paperboard covering material - black leathercloth from BindingYourTime on Etsy foil - We R Memory Keepers foil applied with quill using vinyl templates

endpapers - Jewel Groovy Wave by Jennifer Vaughan endbands - faux double core french endband, with cotton embroidery floss textblock paper - Church bookbinding paper, 20lb, cream, 8.5x11

Typeset: Designed in Scribus. The body text is Libertinius Serif Regular, with titles and dropcaps in Rozha One, and ornaments in Bergamot Ornaments Regular. The title page illustration is by freemymercury.

Cover Design: Vector art created in photopea, using screenshots from the Star Wars prequel trilogy films as reference. Fonts used are Rozha One and Libertinius Serif Bold.

Embers (Hands to the Wheel, specifically) is probably my favorite fic in this fandom. It delivers on everything I wanted but didn't get from canon. I've wanted to bind it for a while, but felt like I needed time to build the skills needed to accomplish my vision. I still don't think I'm 100% there yet (my foiling is not great), but I'm still happy with these.

Materials: covers - 2 mm grey board spine stiffener - paperboard covering material - red leathercloth from BindingYourTime image behind cutout - image printed on cardstock foil - hot foil applied with quill

endpapers - [] endbands - faux double core french endband, with cotton embroidery floss textblock paper - Church bookbinding paper, 20lb, cream, 8.5x11

Typeset: Designed in Scribus. The body text is Coelocanth, with titles, page numbers, and running headers in Alice, dropcaps in Zallman Caps, and ornaments in Fire, Fun Fish, and Cute Sun. Images from Pexels, illustrations from OpenClipart.

Cover Design: Images edited in Photopea. Font is Alice. Illustrations from OpenClipart

dimensions: 4.5"x7.5" Box: 2mm grey board, 20lb red paper, Library Summit bookcloth in black.

Volume 1:

Volume 2:

Volume 3:

Slipcase:

This fic is, in my opinion, the absolute top tier of PHM fanfiction. Reading it brought me all the same feelings as reading the novel, but moreso. The way Rocky is characterized in this fic is just so, so good, it's permanently impacted how I see the character. I stayed up till 2am to finish it and then immediately asked permission to bind it because I immediately knew I had to.

In my design I really wanted to emphasize that this book is from Rocky's perspective, even though it's written in english using earth units (as is explained, in universe, by the fact that Rocky is writing for a human audience). Converting the chapter numbers to seximal and using eridian numerals was an easy decision, but for the rest of the book I was faced with a challenge: physical books are an inherently visual medium, and (most of) my options for decoration are visual in nature. How do I handle that when the POV character is blind and experiences the world through senses completely foreign to humans? I thought about using sonar-style designs of audio waveforms, but figured that was too on the nose (and, in a way, too human). I eventually settled on using images of the disturbances soundwaves create through various media (liquids for the title page and table of contents, sand for the cover and chapter headings) to represent how eridians interpret the world via omnidirectional sound in a way that human readers can understand. My favorite cyamatics images were all black and white, which sent me down the road towards a strictly greyscale aesthetic. Most of the images and motifs in the design are straight horizontal and vertical lines, as a nod to the theme of "alignment" in the fic.

Materials: covers - 2 mm grey board spine stiffener - paperboard covering material - black linen bookcloth inlay - image printed on cardstock vinyl - siser easyweed white vinyl

endpapers - grey cardstock with pearl finish endbands - faux double core french endband, with cotton embroidery floss textblock paper - Church bookbinding paper, 20lb, cream, 8.5x11

Typeset: Designed in Scribus. The body text is Libertinius Serif Regular, with page numbers and running headers in SAASeriesADOT Regular, titles in Beiamox Regular, and ornaments in Bergamot Ornaments Regular. Images by Paul Hindemith, Jordi Torrents, and the NASA Johnson Space Center.

Cover Design: Designed in Photopea. Fonts used are Beiamox Regular (front, spine) and SAASeriesADOT (back). Cyamatics image by cadboy_hk.

dimensions: 5.25"x8.25"

Some earlier design tests:

What do you do when half your favorite fics in a fandom are by the same author? And many of them are too short to bind on there own? You mash em all together in an anthology. And luckily for me it just so happened to be close to the anniversary of the first fic's publication, so I could frame the book as "one year in fandom." A fandomversery present, if you will. Turns out it's hard to come up with a coherent visual theme for a book that's actually 10 separate stories. I could've gone with the tried and true beach/ocean imagery, because that comes up a lot in this fandom, but I'd done that before, and I had some nice green marbled paper I wanted to use, so I ended up theming the book around a green and gold color scheme. This is probably the most intricate typeset I've ever done, because I wanted to include descriptions and metadata at the top of every fic, and include the QR codes in a tasteful way. I knew I wanted an inlay on the front for that "classy" feel, but couldn't decide what to do with the back, so I covered the back in paper to avoid having to come up with a design.

Materials: covers - 2 mm grey board spine stiffener - paperboard covering material - green suede bookcloth inlay - marbled jute fiber paper vinyl - cricut brand gold and silver foil

endpapers - cream and gold vellum paper endbands - faux double core french endband, with cotton embroidery floss textblock paper - Hammermill 20lb printer paper, cream, 8.5x11

Typeset: Designed in Microsoft Word. The body font is Amasis MT Pro, headings are in Cormorant SC, and "handwritten" sections are in Brotherland Signature, Weddingday Revisited, Antically, and Architect's Daughter. Images from Pexels.

Cover Design: Designed in Photopea. Font is Cormorant SC. Shell image from openclipart.

dimensions: 5.5"x8.5"

Some earlier design tests:

This fic is a fun twist of genre; it takes a character who is very much not your typical action hero and thrusts him into the role of Indiana Jones, going on a cross-country adventure to track down the artifacts needed to break a curse (all while avoiding arrest). It's thrilling and cinematic, and so my vision for the typeset is very much inspired by the "action movie" theming. All of the "location headers" are meant to be reminiscent of the LOCATION IN BOLD IMPACT FONT WHITE TEXT ON AN ESTABLISHING SHOT that was a staple of 2000s action movie editing. The font and color choices were meant to add to the bold, adventurous vibes. The "forest fire" paper is in reference to a specific scene in the fic, and the overlay technique is heavily inspired by @zhalfirin's work. This was also my first time sewing endbands.

Materials: covers - 2 mm grey board spine stiffener - paperboard covering material - black and red linen bookcloth overlay - "Forest Fire" chiyogami paper vinyl - cricut brand gold foil, siser easyweed black vinyl

endpapers - green cardstock with pearle finish endbands - faux double core french endband, with cotton embroidery floss textblock paper - Hammermill 20lb printer paper, cream, 8.5x11

Typeset: Designed in Microsoft Word. The body font is Amasis MT Pro, headings are in Poppins, and "handwritten" sections are in Brotherland Signature and Weddingday Revisited. Images from Pexels.

Cover Design: Designed in Photopea. Font is Cinzel.

These fics are, primarily, about people having some very difficult conversations while on a beautiful beach vacation. So the "beach" theming came on a bit strong, I will admit. The typeset heavily features shells, and the cloth and paper on the case was meant to evoke the image of sand and sea. In my defense, canon is just Like That. I don't think you can create Lays fanart with too much beach/ocean imagery. There's no such thing.

Materials: covers - 2 mm grey board spine stiffener - 2 mm grey board covering material - cream linen bookcloth vinyl - cricut brand gold foil

endpapers - printed cardstock endbands - bookcloth rolled over twine textblock paper - Hammermill 20lb printer paper, cream, 8.5x11

Typeset: Designed in Microsoft Word. The body font is Baskerville Old Face, headings are in Gabriola (italics). Images from Alamy.

Cover Design: Designed in Photopea. Title is in Gabriola (italics), author name is in Alegreya Sans.

This fic is a canon-divergent AU; the point of divergence is... Mountain adjacent. Even though only like 2% of this fic takes place on or near mountains, they cast such a shadow over the fic that it felt natural to include them as a focal point. The two-birds-flying-over-mountains on the back is a scene actually feature on page in the fic, though. The mountain range supposedly wraps around the front and back, but that doesn't come across that clearly.

Materials: covers - 2 mm grey board spine stiffener - 2 mm grey board covering material - black suede bookcloth vinyl - cricut brand gold foil

endpapers - printed cardstock endbands - bookcloth rolled over twine textblock paper - Hammermill 20lb printer paper, cream, 8.5x11

Typeset: Designed in Microsoft Word. The body font is Baskerville Old Face, headings are in Cormorant SC, and "handwritten" sections are in Motterdam.

Cover Design: Designed in Photopea. Stock images from Alamy. Font is Cormorant SC.

This was technically not my first fanbinding, but it was the first fanbinding I willing to share with the world. This fic is a groundhog day AU, in which the characters have to relive the same day over and over again. I chose the belltower as the central image to design the cover around because it is A) the setting for a scene that particularly stood out to me and B) representative of the "time" theme without being too on the nose. The white and gold color scheme is appropriate to both the fandom and the setting of the fic. One detail I am particularly proud of: At one point in the fic, a character spends several days in bed in a fit of depression and grief at his circumstances. The author conveys this by using several of the "Day ###" headings that are present throughout the fic, but with no content in between, showing that nothing happened on those days (at least from the narrator's POV). When I saw that I knew I had to do the twilight thing.

Materials: covers - 2 mm grey board spine stiffener - 2 mm grey board covering material - cream linen bookcloth vinyl - cricut brand gold foil

endpapers - white cardstock with gold foil endbands - bookcloth rolled over twine textblock paper - Hammermill 20lb printer paper, cream, 8.5x11 Typeset: Designed in Microsoft Word. The body font is Baskerville Old Face, headings are in Brotherland Signature, and "handwritten" sections are in Weddingday Revisited. Cover Design: Designed in Photopea. The belltower image came from Alamy. Title font is Brotherland Signature, author name is in Alegreya Sans.

dimensions: 5.5"x8.5"

Fun fact: I actually made 3 copies of this book! The first copy, then an author copy, then I actually remade the first copy a few weeks later to fix a few issues (using bookcloth instead of random cotton, not scorching the cloth when applying the vinyl, using more appropriate font size/margins in the typeset, fixing some problems with the spine dimensions so the book would open properly. Here are the original copy and remake side by side: