An Introduction to MinaLima's Illustrated Classics

24 April 2019
ミナリマ, ミナリマ物語

With Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass launching this October – the sixth in MinaLima’s Illustrated Classics series – we want to reveal how we were first inspired to create this collection of enchanting editions.

In 2015, together with Harper Design we set out to assemble an anthology like no other. We envisioned an entire shelf of beloved children’s tales. J.M. Barrie’s classic Peter Pan was the first to be selected; its mixture of adventure and imagination made it a perfect fit for our inventive designs. The collection has grown to include The Jungle Book, The Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid & Other Fairytales and The Secret Garden, all unified by deluxe foiled covers but each designed to maintain its own personality as an individual story.

As avid book collectors (our studio and home walls are lined with packed bookshelves), we relished the prospect of creating our own editions of treasured tales. However, we were keen that our interpretations should offer the reader something unique, so we thought about how we could bring our experience in prop design to design to the books.

And so our interactive and pop-up elements were born. The interactive elements taking the form of ephemera from each story: letters, maps and dials all draw the reader in, making them participants in each wonderful world.

The result is that every edition in the series is designed to feel as if it comes from the world of the stories: we wanted our version of the Peter Pan book to feel like it was from Wendy’s Room – not just that it was about Peter Pan but that it was from Peter Pan.

Having flown to Neverland and journeyed through the Jungle, we’re excited to follow Alice down the rabbit hole to Wonderland.

Are you excited for the next addition to MinaLima’s library?