Enric Jardi
Before the Magic Had a Face
Long before Harry Potter became a global visual phenomenon — before Daniel Radcliffe donned round glasses or the Hogwarts Express gleamed red on screen — illustrator Enric Jardí was tasked with bringing J.K. Rowling’s magical world to life for Catalan readers. His cover for Harry Potter i la pedra filosofal, published by Editorial Empúries in November 1999, remains one of the most distinctive early interpretations of the wizarding world.
And perhaps its most surprising feature? The Hogwarts Express is blue.
A Time Before the Films
“It’s strange to see his character illustrated this way,” Jardí later reflected. And no wonder — back then, Harry Potter had no definitive look. There were no movies to set a visual standard, no promotional posters plastered across bus stops, and no Hogwarts-themed merchandise. The brief was minimal: a young boy with glasses and a lightning-bolt scar.
Everything else — the colours, the mood, the scenery — was up to the illustrator’s imagination.
And so, for Catalonia’s introduction to Harry Potter, Enric Jardí imagined the iconic train that carries young witches and wizards to Hogwarts... as a bright blue locomotive, streaking across a mysterious, moonlit landscape.
Reimagining the Familiar
Today, it may seem unusual to longtime fans who are accustomed to the crimson tones of the film version’s Hogwarts Express. But Jardí’s choice reflects a time when the visual identity of Harry Potter was fluid, personal, and wildly diverse — when each country’s illustrator helped define the way local readers would first picture the Boy Who Lived and his world.
Jardí’s artwork stands as a snapshot of this pre-cinematic moment — a creative freedom that allowed illustrators around the world to give the wizarding world their own spin.
A Place in Potter History
Though not as widely discussed as some later editions, Enric Jardí’s cover holds a special place in the visual history of Harry Potter. It reminds us that there was a time when Harry didn’t look like a movie star — he was simply a boy in a book, waiting to be imagined.
And in Catalonia, for thousands of readers, he first arrived aboard a blue train.