You know that moment when you realize everyone's been getting the story wrong? That's exactly what happened when I started researching this handbound edition of The Phantom of the Opera. Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel was never about romance—it was pure gothic horror, featuring a skull-faced specter haunting actual catacombs beneath Paris's most magnificent theater. I wanted to create something that strips away decades of romantic reinterpretation and gets back to what made this story genuinely terrifying.

What started as picking pretty colors for three book rebinds turned into a 15-hour deep dive through university archives, geological surveys, and 19th-century records. I discovered that Potsdam's sandstone was so significant geologists named an entire rock formation after the town, learned that SUNY Potsdam's colors are maroon and gray (not burgundy!), and uncovered Syracuse University's role as the first institution to claim orange as a single school color. Every design choice now tells a specific historical story.

Discovering the profound research process behind culturally sensitive book art that honors Queen Liliʻuokalani's legacy while respecting Hawaiian sovereignty and cultural protocols.