B•SIDE
THE UNTOLD STORY
20 Extraordinary tales based on true events, illustrated through photographed dreamlike miniature sets.
Human Made for Humans.
I want to share you something…
Growing up, there was one room in my grandfather Flavio’s house I loved more than any other.
His office.
It was filled with books, maps, photographs, tickets, bottles and strange objects collected over a lifetime of travel. But what stayed with me most were the stories… Picasso. Frida Kahlo. Van Gogh. Napoleon. Ferrari. Bugatti.
Except these were never quite the stories history had taught me. There was always someone else. A boy. A doctor. A mechanic. A forgotten object. A seemingly insignificant moment that somehow changed everything.
Many of those stories had been told to my grandfather by a mysterious man he knew only as B.
Years later, I began sharing them with my friend, artist Félix Hernández. I started putting them into words and Félix began transforming them into images. Not literal illustrations, but dreamlike interpretations created through handcrafted miniature sets, practical effects and photography.
“Guido Benassini”
That became B-SIDE. A book made to be explored, not simply read.
Twenty stories rooted in real history, woven into the larger mystery of Flavio and B, surrounded by objects, letters, recipes, photographs and clues waiting to be discovered.
And because this is ultimately a story about people, memory and the things we leave behind, every part of it; the writing, the design and the imagery, has been created by human hands.
History tells us what happened. B-SIDE lives in what history left unsaid.
The Book.
B-SIDE/ The Untold Story is conceived as a limited-edition hardcover coffee-table book for collectors. A substantial, tactile object designed as if came out from Flavio’s own study. Its visual language draws from 1930s posters, newspaper advertisements, old letters, travel documents and the curious printed ephemera he collected throughout his life. Dark leather, embossed copper details and gilded edges complete the feeling of a private archive transformed into a contemporary collectible.
The Printing Characteristics.
Edition: Collector’s book.
Format: Premium hardcover coffee-table book
Closed size: approximately 245mm × 343 mm
Spine: approximately 5 cm / Aprox.
Length: approximately 300 pages
Binding: Sewn hardcover binding
Spine construction: Rounded spine / round back
Cover board: approximately 3 mm rigid grey board
Cover material: Leather-effect or Matte Paper (Subject to the foil on complete cover)
Cover artwork: Metallic copper foil hot stamping
Finish: Embossed or debossed (Subject to the foil on complete cover)
Page edges: Metallic copper gilding
Interior printing: Full-color 4C/4C offset printing
Interior paper: approximately 140 gsm premium uncoated / offset paper
Endpapers: approximately 180 gsm offset paper
BOOK’S CONTENT.
Stories Within a Story.
Every meeting between Flavio and B begins with something tangible; a place, an old building, a cocktail, a meal, an object. In B’s hands, each becomes a doorway into another story.
Through their travels, we discover 20 short tales inspired by real people and historical events, while another story quietly unfolds around them: the unlikely friendship between Flavio and B, and the mystery of who this remarkable man really was.
Each story can be experienced in more than one way. Read it on the page, or follow a QR code to hear it as an audio story while stepping behind the scenes into Félix Hernández’s studio, where miniature sets, characters and practical effects transform the story into images.
One journey. Twenty stories. And a mystery running through them all.
NOTE:
The following video is a sample of one of the 20 short stories, presented here with a recorded narration. For presentation purposes, the voice in this example was generated using AI. In the final book experience, however, all stories will be narrated and recorded by a real human voice. Each audio narration will be paired with a behind-the-scenes video showing Félix Hernández in his studio, creating the miniature sets, characters and practical effects used to produce the images inspired by that particular story.
The Book Illustrated.
The illustrations in B-SIDE are not drawings in the traditional sense, but photographs built from miniature worlds.
Created by Félix Hernández, each image begins as a small handmade scene. Shaped through model making, painted characters, lighting, practical effects and photography. And ends as a conceptual fine art piece inspired by the story behind it. Rather than describe the stories literally, the images interpret them through symbols, atmosphere and suggestion.
Note: The following images are real photographies and part of the book inspired by the story of “Simply Pablo” / Human Made.
Across the book, more than 120 photographic illustrations are accompanied by over 120 behind-the-scenes images, revealing the process behind their creation. Some of them also lead, through QR codes, to additional content: still animations, extended BTS material, and downloadable high-resolution files meant to be enjoyed as fine art prints.
Every image in B-SIDE is 100% human made. No AI has been used in their creation.
A Deeper Look.
B-SIDE goes deeper than the stories themselves.
Between the written pages and the finished photographs, the book opens another layer; The making of the miniature worlds, the materials, the hands behind them, and the thoughts that shaped each image. Alongside the behind the scenes, we also encounter objects once kept in Flavio’s study: tickets, letters, lighters, bottles, documents and other fragments connected to the stories.
Photographed with the same care as the illustrations, these pieces become part evidence, part memory, part mystery.
Because sometimes the story is not only in what happened, but in what was left behind.
Note: The following images are real photographies and part of the book inspired by the stories / Human Made.
DESIGNED BY HAND.
B-SIDE was not only written and photographed by people… it was designed that way too.
For the interior, Félix approached the editorial design almost like another part of the artwork, using rubber stamps, handwritten labels, old papers, envelopes, wax seals, coffee stains, typewriter textures, hand-drawn vignettes and other tactile materials. These elements are created physically first, then digitized and carefully woven into the pages.
The result is an editorial world that feels touched, collected and lived in. A design language that belongs to the stories themselves.
A book made by humans, for humans.
EDITORIAL DESIGN.
A stamp. A torn piece of tape. A few words written on a napkin. Within B-SIDE, the pages hold small traces of the lives unfolding between them. The stories sit alongside photographs of objects from Flavio’s encounters with B, and photographic artworks inspired by what those encounters leave behind. Recipes carry something of their shared tables into our own: a drink, a dish, a reason to linger.
Felix approaches the editorial design with the same care he brings to his photographs. Paper, ink, stains and handwritten marks are worked by hand, then digitized and woven into the pages, preserving their textures and small imperfections.
A book crafted by human hands, for human hands. To be read slowly, explored closely, and returned to.
BOOK COSTS.
Printing Quote:
Printer: QuinPrintig / China.
• 1000 Books / with Case: $15,000 USD / $15 USD Per Book
• 3000 Books / with Case: $34,500 USD / $11.50 USD Per Book
Printing Quote:
Hay que importar nosotros / no pueden mandar a México.
No hay impuestos o son bajos por ser libros.
• 1000 Books / 2,945 Kg. / $7,000
• 3000 Books / 8,835 Kg. / $14,000
Total:
• 1000 Books $22,000 USD / $22 USD Per Book.
• 3000 Books $48,500 USD / 16.16 USD Per Book.