Canon, Fanon, Your Design

About

Canon, Fanon, Your Design is a fan art trend where artists draw a character from a select fandom in their canon style, fanon (fan canon) style and in their own design. The trend was popularized on Twitter in late March 2023 after a user shared a template for the trend, inspiring numerous examples over the following weeks.

Origin

On March 23rd, 2023, Twitter^[1] user @SunnyDionysus posted a blank template with three side-by-side rectangles, labeled left to right, "canon," "fanon" and "your design," writing, "New art trend! Take your fave character and run :D" garnering over 8,300 likes and 2,400 retweets in a month (shown below). Artists are meant to draw the canon design for a select character from a fandom in the left-most box, the fanon, meaning "fan canon"^[2] design in the middle and their own design in the right-most box.

Spread

The posted inspired numerous artists to post their fan art using the template on sites including Twitter, DeviantArt and Tumblr. For example, on March 26th, 2023, DeviantArt^[3] user kyo09222 posted a Five Nights at Freddy's version of the meme that gained over 100 favorites in a month (shown below, left). On March 31st, Twitter^[4] user @RayePickle posted a version referencing Animaniacs, garnering over 5,000 likes in just over three weeks (shown below, right).

The trend continued into April. On April 19th, Twitter^[5] user @justsomeegg posted a version of the trend referencing Genshin Impact character Aether, garnering over 480 likes in five days. On April 23rd, Tumblr^[6] user modharvest posted a version about Princess Peach (shown below).

Template

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References