Bind: 2024 Reading Journal

I had so much fun with this little project. I had been waiting for binder tape to arrive for some of my bigger projects, and I decided to do something a little more fun and easy while I waited.

Enter my 2024 Reading Journal!

A little bit of background, every year, at the beginning of the year, I typeset a reading journal, then fill out the typeset on my computer throughout the year as I finish books with the intent of binding them into a journal at the end of the year. Spoiler Alert: I never do it. Once a year is over, it is gone, and on to the next year, and I never look back. I think my rationale behind this plan is that I'm afraid if I fill in the journal by hand, I'll mess it up, so I'll make it look pretty and complete a the end of the year instead. Which is ridiculous, so I'm trying something different this year.

This year, I bound my reading journal at the beginning of the year, with plenty of templates to populate my thoughts, opinions, stats, and more. And everything about that journal will be here in this post!

Design Decisions

I want to start this by saying that my internal typeset and my physical design of this bind are completely unrelated to each other and are not cohesive. I took this project as an opportunity for me to play with elements I normally don't and to try new methods I normally avoid. It was strictly for my enjoyment and not necessarily meant to be a complete-looking piece.

The Insides:

When making the typeset for this, I was really inspired by the color pallet Lady Bobbitt used in her red Manacled typeset. I thought the red and black popped so well and decided to put my own twist on it. I've never really used much color in my typesets, and am very glad I gave it a run.

With the red color scheme in mind, I decided to create a form for each of the books I've read to be completed with a black and red pen - black for the writing, and red to color in various icons and checkboxes. My forms consisted of the following: Book title, author, genre, page count, word count, start date, end date, star rating, a more specific numbered rating up to 5.0 (because yes, they're different), fanfic or traditionally published, read via physical book, ebook, or audiobook, spice level, emotions felt, if it's a part of the series, series details, thoughts, and quotes. Oh, and of course, a space to tape in a picture of the book itself. I then left an area at the end of the journal for a list of books I DNF'd and for additional notes.

Once I finished the main meat of my typeset, I went back and added additional fun activities to the beginning of the journal: a reading wrap-up page featuring different reading stats, a book bracket to determine my best book of the year and an interactive bookshelf to color in as I finish reading books, and so on. Things I thought were fun and would motivate me to fill out the journal throughout the year, instead of forgetting it on the shelf somewhere.

Finally, I ended the insides of this book with some cute black and gold foil moths, feathers, and mons that I haven't been able to find a purpose for. I thought they were so beautiful, but have been too specific to use in any of the books I have made up until this point, so they got added to this project.

The Outside:

My design for the outside of this was completely inspired by the random end papers I mentioned above. I knew I wanted to do something in gold - since it is my favorite - with moth inspiration, so I headed to Pinterest for inspiration. I found a gorgeous old-timey-looking book with moths and butterflies and decided to try to recreate it with my own twist: more moths, no butterflies, and the addition of cicadas. Cicadas are special to me, as my sister gifted me a beautiful taxidermied cicada specimen on a piece of pyrite and a coyote tooth with flowers that I fondly keep on my bookshelf. You may have seen it in the background of a few of my books, as it makes the perfect Dark Academia photo prop, on top of being my favorite item on my bookshelf.

Other than the Moths and Cicadas, I wanted to keep the design clean. I added the year to the front cover, and "2024 Reading Journal" to the spine before calling it a day. To tie into the Dark Academia / Moth vibe I wanted to have, I went with brown and black bookcloths - clean and simple.

The Making Of:

For this project, I used a French-link stitch on the text block, sans binders tape, as I didn't require the extra support and wanted the book to be extremely flexible for writing purposes. I changed from my regular 7-ply waxed thread, and used a 3-ply thread instead, as I wanted to test it out before using it on other binds, and found it to suffice.

For the cover, I used a three-Bradle case method, which I have seen popularized on Bookstagram and Booktok lately. Although I think it is beautiful and love how easy it was to create, I don't personally think it feels as stable as other binding methods I have used in the past, and plan to use this method sparingly in the future.

If you are interested in purchasing this typeset, let me know! If there is interest, I am happy to add it to my shop as a digital download!

Thank you for checking out this bind! Make sure to follow me on Instagram to get more frequent updates on what I am working on, and check out my other fanfic binds and rebinds!

Happy Reading!

– The Binder's Room

Reminder:

Fanfic Binds are for my personal use only and are not available for commission.

Commissions are only offered for Rebinds and Original Works.