Mirrormask is the story of Helena Campbell, a young girl who works at her family’s circus. After a fight with her mother, her mom collapses and has to be rushed to the hospital. On the night of her mother’s operation, Helena wakes up in a new world. A princess in this new world, who looks just like Helena, has used the Mirrormask to switch places with Helena – with dire results to both worlds. Now Helena has to go on a quest to find the Mirrormask herself in order to set everything right again and get back to her own world.
From a reader’s perspective, I did not enjoy this particular Neil Gaiman story as much as I did Coraline or Stardust. From a Graphic Designer’s perspective, it was one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read since Lane Smith’s John, Paul, George & Ben. It was positively a delight! It looks like the designer had so much fun. How the font, the size and weight of the type, the baseline all are necessary parts of the telling of the story… I’ve uploaded two of my favourite parts here, because just talking about how awesome it is doesn’t do it justice.
I love how the text is constrasted with each other – black text on a light background to describe the city of light, and the white text on black background for the land of shadows. Look at how oppressive the white on black is – which is exactly what the land of shadows is like. I love how this was continued in the book too. Once Helena and Valentine enter the land of shadows, everything is white text on the black background.
This was my favourite… how the spaces between each word doubles, and so the sentence seems to drag on. It displays perfectly what the sentence is saying. Love it.
I’m in the mood for rewatching the movie at some point now…
Also, for those fellow Canadians… Happy Thanksgiving this weekend! (Mmm Turkey Day!)
