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Creativity and a bookbind from the past
May. 11th, 2026 07:24 pmSo I was scrolling through the Renegade Bookbinding Discord when someone asked if anyone recalled a fic where a person finds a dead body on a beach. Someone replied with a link to the prospective fic and said I had bound this particular fic, some time back.
I took a look at the photos I made of the ficbind and was just... awed... at how much I pushed myself to be creative for this book. Image-heavy chapter openers, pages printed black to convey dreams, formatting paragraphs into text messages...
A part of me realized then that I haven't been as creative with my later ficbinds as with my early ones. I mostly go for readability over visual impact, and my old inkjet printer couldn't handle printing full-color pages without jamming. After several bad incidents, I decided to restrain myself.
But I miss it. I miss going balls-to-the-wall creative with typesetting and layouts. I miss being creative and uncaring if the printer jams or not. I miss plastering blown-up photos across pages or go with funky layouts. It feels something within me to see how images and story go together. I miss it.
Just recently, my dad replaced the old inkjet printer with a HP inktank printer. It produces a noticable printer skew, but makes amazing color images. Maybe it'll jam, but I wanna try being visually creative again with my bookbinding.
I wanna see pretty pictures when I read again.
I took a look at the photos I made of the ficbind and was just... awed... at how much I pushed myself to be creative for this book. Image-heavy chapter openers, pages printed black to convey dreams, formatting paragraphs into text messages...
A part of me realized then that I haven't been as creative with my later ficbinds as with my early ones. I mostly go for readability over visual impact, and my old inkjet printer couldn't handle printing full-color pages without jamming. After several bad incidents, I decided to restrain myself.
But I miss it. I miss going balls-to-the-wall creative with typesetting and layouts. I miss being creative and uncaring if the printer jams or not. I miss plastering blown-up photos across pages or go with funky layouts. It feels something within me to see how images and story go together. I miss it.
Just recently, my dad replaced the old inkjet printer with a HP inktank printer. It produces a noticable printer skew, but makes amazing color images. Maybe it'll jam, but I wanna try being visually creative again with my bookbinding.
I wanna see pretty pictures when I read again.
