posted on 18 Jun 2016

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling illustrated by Minalima

How do you go about rethinking the illustrations for a classic like The Jungle Book? Not only do you have to compete with the heritage of existing great illustration, there's also the continual, lurking presence of the Disney Studio interpretation. Harper Design, who have published this latest little miracle, have turned to Minalima to come up with something quite special.

Minalima is the corportae name of three designers workign together - Miraphora Mina, Eduardo Lima and Lauren Wakefield. Their reputations were built not in book design but in film graphics - including the Harry Potter movies - and so this venture into book design sees them coming at the task from a very different angle. It is clearly their experience of three dimensional graphics that has led them to largely abandon traditional two dimensional illustration in favour of what they call 'interactive elements'. That's not to say there are no traditional illustrations here - there are - but they play a decidedly secondary role to the fabulous array of three dimensional maps, lift-outs, fold-outs, animal puzzles and tab-pulls.

It's impossible to go through this book without gasping at the audacity of these illustrators as almost every page gives you a new thrill. I have no idea how much it must have cost to publish a book like this but the cover cost of £20 seems an extraordinary bargain. It's also really unclear how a book like this will survive the over-exuberance of children wanting to really get into it and I'm forced to wonder whether it is in reality aimed more at adults rather than younger readers.

This same company has also done a wonderful version of Peter Pan and I hope this is the start of something really fabulous in terms of reinterpreting classics - I will certainly be making a point of collecting everything that comes out in this series.

Terry Potter

June 2016