House of @minalima - Designer of the Month August

This month I have chosen Minalima as my designers of the month, after a trip to the gallery I mentioned in my London post made me fall in love with their work! I knew them as the designers of the graphic design within the Harry Potter films, but their gallery gave me the chance to ook at some of their other work and realise just how beautiful they can make paper look.

 They are a designing duo, made of Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima (with names like that what else could they be doing but Harry Potter?!). They focus on the handcrafted, the print, the classically beautiful. I look at their pieces and think of hard work, effort, passion and excitement.

From visiting the Making of Harry Potter Studios and being a general Harry Potter nerd anyway, I had an idea that the design would be gorgeous, but the fact that each book or newspaper they have created are full and not just the front covers even though they are only film props is just the start of how much work must have gone into their designs. Every single item is beautifully designed, even if it was only in the film for a few seconds, or a page that may not be seen at all.

The work put into the beautiful handcrafted type; the meticulous foiling; the colours and textures applied is immense. Textures made designs look old and weathered, and screen printing reflect the hand made, classic style of the Wizarding World. My personal favourites from the film, the Weasley Joke shop, appeared in an eye-catching bright-orange corner, with crazy colours and shapes to match the crazy personalities.

On display in the gallery was also a collection of screen prints from their 'A Zeal of Zebras' book, that I may have purchased from the shop! They are beautiful, a way of telling the alphabet through image. A grown up, handcrafted take on our old school way of teaching letters, the printed textures and bright colours made me want to take them all home. Their illustrated versions of the Peter Pan and Jungle Book books were also amazing, if I wasn't a poor student I would've bought them too! They were almost too precious to touch. They appeared timeless, something you would keep and pass onto you're children so every generation could cherish the classic stories in a visually exciting way.

I'd definitely recommend you head down to The House of Minalima on Greek Street, off Shaftesbury Avenue in London. Even if you're not a huge Harry Potter fan, any graphic design lover has to appreciate the craft gone into each piece of work. It has definitely made me want to start to get into printing more again, and gives me an idea of a really fun and exciting path that a career in graphic design could lead to!

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