diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 1d286cf..f9d161e 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file. The format
 
 ### Fixed
 - Initialize PDFium's form environment in `get_page_image` so that filled AcroForm field content is included when rendering pages via `Page.to_image()`. ([#1367](https://github.com/jsvine/pdfplumber/issues/1367))
+- Fix `make venv`, which created the virtual environment at `venv/` but then installed into `${VENV}` (default `.venv/`), causing the target to fail on a fresh checkout (h/t @soodoku). ([ec96f72](https://github.com/jsvine/pdfplumber/commit/ec96f72))
 - Include the wrapped exception's class name in `PdfminerException`'s message when `pdfminer.six` raises an exception without one (e.g. `PDFPasswordIncorrect`), which previously surfaced as a blank error message.
 
 ## [0.11.10] — 2026-06-14
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 0d0e6ec..8877e0f 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ VENV ?= .venv
 PYTHON = ${VENV}/bin/python
 
 venv:
-	python3 -m venv venv
+	python3 -m venv ${VENV}
 	${VENV}/bin/pip install --upgrade pip
 	${VENV}/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
 	${VENV}/bin/pip install -r requirements-dev.txt