Handmade Book Idea

For our new brief on handmade books, we were given a theme of fairy tales. We were also given a printed brief with some inspirational ideas. I wanted to create something clever and unique, but not overly complicated. A liked a picture from the brief, and knew I wanted to do something very similar.

It's a paper pair of binoculars, but in one eyes is one view and in the other is another. I loved this creative take on perspective, so I thought to portray a fairytale is the same way.

At first I thought I could do something like The Little Mermaid where the princess was worried about losing her voice, but in the other eye the prince was talking to chatty girls, wishing for someone who was quieter. I thought this would be funny and clever, but I kept searching.

We watched a video in class where a book artist would create paper scenes that were quite obscene, but no words. This remind me of my own idea as I'd have no words to describe what was happening, but I liked the idea of having a bit of a twisted idea.

So, I went back to Google and looked at other stories by Danish poet and writer, Hans Christian Anderson. One story I remember reading years ago fit perfectly with my idea. The Little Match-Seller. The story is of a homeless little girl who tries to sell matches, in the cold of winter. She ends up on New Year's Eve burning all of her matches for warmth but also because she would start to dream. Food, warmth, a home and her grandmother were in these dreams, and she ends up leaving with her grandmother, leaving her frozen body behind.

In the story people who see her feel bad for her, seeing how frozen she is and all of her burnt matches, but they don't know about the happiness the little girl dreamt about and died to. So, this gave me the idea of having one eye looking at a sad, cruel scene of a frozen body, but the other is the girl with her grandmother walking away to light.

I have designed this in my sketchbook and I'm excited to get
my hands stuck in.