Citybound Stories

Fangfang has created two richly detailed cover illustrations for Fanshu Magazine, a Chinese monthly literature publication for young adults, published in October and again mid-December.

Drawing on cities from Shanghai and Xi’an to London, York, Chongqing, and Kyoto, Fangfang’s first cover folds architecture into book-like forms, transforming urban space into a playful, map-inspired reading landscape alive with tiny characters and literary cameos.

The second illustration shifts inward, presenting a jewel-box cabinet of literary relics and everyday keepsakes, where Proust’s madeleine and Nabokov’s butterflies sit alongside postcards and stones, inviting slow visual discovery.

Across both covers, bright, generous colour palettes and layered compositions mirror Fanshu’s mission to celebrate reading as both a cultural foundation and a deeply personal pleasure, making literature feel contemporary, curious, and joyfully collectible.