Blog #2 - Prompt #2 - Kerra Sunderlin

As a Graphic Communication Design major, there's not a lot of connections I can make between my major and reading Harry Potter. However on my reread of the series, one thing in particular I've been especially cognizant of are the small drawings at the beginning of every chapter. With my prior knowledge of everything that happens through out the series, I've begun to notice their significance to the text and what is contained in every chapter. In fact I've begun to consider them an example of a communication problem that designers like me deal with on a daily basis. J.K. Rowling certainly wanted these drawings to hint at what was to come without giving anything away and was likely to have worked closely with the illustrator to make sure this was accomplished. This emphasis on teasing the audience is what makes them so interesting and an important part of the reading experience.

As a whole, these small illustrations tell their own story and while some are seemingly explicit, others tend to be far more obscure and hint at some of the more suspenseful events in each chapter. For example, in the Goblet of Fire, Chapter Nineteen is simply named "The Hungarian Horntail" with a very obvious illustration of a group of dragons. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize this means there's dragons involved in this chapter, however Rowling distracts with the reader with mention of a fire side chat with Sirius and keeps the dragon's involvement in the overall theme of the book a secret until later in the chapter (pg 313). By stalling up until the big reveal of the first task, Rowling is able to still create an effective plot twist. However if she attempted to do this for the second task chapter as well, I doubt it would work as effectively. On the completely opposite side of the spectrum are some of the more ambiguous chapter illustrations. One such illustration can be found in the Goblet of Fire for the very last chapter called "The Beginning" (pg 716). The illustration of a random beetle on a leaf doesn't seem to be a fitting drawing for the closing chapter of the long book, however once we come to one of the final plot twists of the novel when Hermione exposes Rita Skeeter's beetle animagus form, we understand just how significant the drawing is. In fact, upon a closer look, we're even able to discern the cat eye glasses markings around the beetle's eyes. Each drawing contains a little magic that opens our eyes to the magical world of Harry Potter, all while keeping us on our toes about the next suspenseful plot twist.

Overall I find these small, yet detailed illustrations such a fascinating part of the Harry Potter series. For one, they're one of the few things that still ties the series to it's children's literature roots and help the audience begin to visualize some of the moments throughout each book. However they also pose an interesting problem for the illustrator to solve of what to show and how much is too much. It's absolutely fascinating for me to imagine a client and artist relationship between J.K. Rowling and Mary GrandPré, the illustrator. While it's such a small part of the overall experience of reading Harry Potter, it inspires my design career to imagine how my own designs could possibly play a part of something as magical as the Harry Potter series.