Andrew
Davidson

New covers

Webb&Webb: Later we were tasked to attract a new era of ‘mass market’ reader to the Harry Potter series. The brief was clear, to not only capture the spirit of the story but to stand out amongst the plethora of black photographic covers in the adult/teen fantasy market. 

Since studying Graphic Design and graduating from the Royal College of Art in London in 1982, I have been fortunate to have employed both design and drawing in my work.

These illustrations were created using an antiquated method. Each wood engraving was hand crafted and made on seven-inch English boxwood onto Japanese paper. It created the “perfect effect” according to the artist. Davidson had a distinct vision for his art. The complexity of Andrew’s work, hand engraved on English Boxwood measuring no more than 9” x 7” and printed on Japanese paper, really suits the genre.

“I wanted them to look as if they had come straight from the pages of a book taken from the library at Hogwarts (the boarding school for wizard’s where the books are set)”, explains Andrew.

The project took around two and a half months to complete, and each of the images describes a key scene, character or setting from that novel: designs for first books in the series feature the Hogwarts Express train and Gothic castle, while later covers have a darker feel and feature ghouls, skulls and serpents.  The earlier books feature lighthearted designs of the Hogwarts Express and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The later books feature much more darker images, as the books progress towards the darker days of Voldemort’s return.

Andrew’s commission from Bloomsbury allows him to hand-print 20 of each of the illustrations from the wood-engravings for his own use and it is these that we will have on display.