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| Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima looking at their designs. |
I've recently discovered the company MinaLima at
minalima.com. These designers, Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima met as designers on the set of the Harry Potter and worked together to create the visual graphic style of the films.
Since then they have gone on to create the company
MinaLima. Their designs nod to the old ways of design - letterpress, screenprinting, stamping, hand-writing, painting, and drawing. But of course, when wizards can't use computers!
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| MinaLima designs |
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| Chamber of Secrets Poster Book |
Harry Potter was my first design inspiration, although I think the first graphics that inspired me were before Miraphora and Eduardo were creating their beautiful artwork for Harry Potter. The Chamber of Secrets Poster Books I distinctly remember staring at for hours. Why, you ask? It's not like it's a design masterpiece, you say.
Well, halfway through the booklet, there's a picture of McGonagall's office with
the same photo of Hermione from the cover! How did they do that? How was that done? Also, I hadn't yet discovered the feather tool on Paint Shop Pro 5, and I couldn't figure out how they got the photos to blend so well together.
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| MinaLima designs |
Harry Potter was really picking up after the third film, and the designs on set began to greatly improve. Designed props were so detailed and beautiful, you couldn't help enjoy the whimsical designs that matched the magical world. Being such a huge Harry Potter fan, it would be amazing if the design from the films were not a huge inspiration to my own creative thinking. I owe MinaLima so much for showing me the importance of detail, but also how perfection is perspective - there are plenty of fonts I've found on MinaLima designs that I would have steered so far away from! But they work for their designs so well, I wouldn't change a thing even if I had the ultimate good fortune to.
