Make a fan website that's clearly yours and clearly unofficial
The fan sites people return to are the ones with something the official channels don't have: a careful episode guide, a timeline of a band's tours, a fan's own photos from a match, an opinion worth reading. Build on your own words and images, keep news dated and current, and make it obvious from the first screen that the site is unofficial.
What makes a fan site worth visiting
Official sites announce. Fan sites organise, explain and remember. The most useful ones pick a lane and go deep:
- Reference: discographies with recording dates, episode guides with writers and directors, a player's season-by-season record.
- Timelines: every tour date, every appearance, every edition of a game.
- First-hand material: your photos from gigs or matches, your reports from conventions, interviews you've done yourself.
- Writing: reviews, theories and essays with a point of view.
- Community notices: meetups, fan projects and charity drives, with dates.
What you can and can't publish
This is where most fan sites get into trouble. Being a fan doesn't give you rights to someone else's work. As a general rule:
| Usually fine | Risky or not allowed without permission |
|---|---|
| Your own writing, reviews and analysis | Song lyrics, scripts or book passages reproduced in full |
| Photos you took yourself, at events that allow photography | Official photos, artwork and promotional images copied from elsewhere |
| Short quotes with credit, as part of commentary | Full episodes, songs, clips or scans |
| Linking to official videos and stores | Using the official logo so the site looks like the real thing |
| The name of the person or work, to say what the site is about | A domain or title that could be mistaken for the official site |
Copyright and trademark rules vary by country, and "fair use" or "fair dealing" exceptions are narrower than many people assume. Some rights holders publish fan content policies saying what they allow; look for one and follow it. If you're unsure about something, leave it out or ask the rights holder.
For pictures beyond your own, Anticode's design-engine pages can use a curated library of photos from Unsplash, with alt text written for each. They're good for mood (a stage, a stadium, a bookshelf), not for pictures of the actual person or team.
Say it isn't official, early and plainly
Put a line near the top of the home page and in the footer: "An unofficial fan site. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the band, its label or its management." Choose a name and domain that read as a fan project ("Night Owls Archive" rather than "BandName Official"). Avoid the official logo and colour scheme where they'd make the site look like the real one. Visitors trust a fan page website more when it's honest about what it is, and rights holders are generally more relaxed about sites that are.
News and updates in a collection
Fan sites live or die on whether they look current. Keep news, reviews or episode entries in a CMS collection with fields for the title, date, category and body. Each entry gets its own page at /<collection>/<slug>, and the collection page lists them newest first. Entries are edited in the dashboard, so posting an update takes a few minutes. Link every news item to its source; fan news that turns out to be a rumour costs more credibility than missing a story.
A newsletter form (it asks for an email only) sending sign-ups to Mailchimp or Kit lets you tell readers when there's something new, since there are no RSS feeds.
Building it with Anticode
As a fan site builder, Anticode starts from a description: "an unofficial fan website for a 1990s indie band, with a discography, tour timeline, news and my own gig photos". The Architect asks up to three questions where the answer changes the build and shows a plan. Your own gig photos appear on a designed page as entries in a CMS collection (gigs, say) whose image field holds their hosted addresses, or in an app build that uses your uploads. Pick a design system that suits the subject: Brutalist for punk, Playful for a cartoon, Editorial for a literary fandom. The design gate blocks placeholder text and empty links from publishing, which helps keep a reference site tidy as it grows.
Limits
- No forums, comments or member accounts. Point fans to your Discord or forum for discussion.
- No embedded videos or social feeds. Link to them.
- No RSS or scheduled posts. Publish news when you write it.
- No help with rights. Anticode doesn't check whether material you upload is yours to use.
Questions people ask
Is it legal to make a fan site?
Making a fan site about someone is generally fine. What matters is the material on it: your own words and photos are yours; other people's media usually isn't.
Can I run ads or sell merch on a fan site?
Selling merchandise with someone else's name, logo or likeness usually needs a licence.
Can other fans contribute?
They can send material through the contact form, and you publish it with credit. They can't edit the site themselves.