Leah, the Designer

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN BOOK COVER SERIES

This project’s prompt was to create either a book cover or movie poster series. I had just taken my first trip to Europe the previous summer. While in Copenhagen, Denmark and learned more about the stories written by Hans Christian Andersen. I also learned that Walt Disney visited the amusement park in Copenhagen called Tivoli which inspired Disneyland. Disney also took the  stories of Hans Christian Andersen and often altered the storylines so much that they were almost unrecognizable when adapted into films. I set out to create a book cover series that used accurate symbols within Andersen’s stories.

I chose two stories that Disney adapted into movies, and one that was not yet made into a film. I decided on using the simple, yet intricate medium of paper cutting. Hans Christian Andersen was known for making handmade paper cutouts as gifts and as a hobby, so it seemed fitting to use them in the series.

The Ugly Duckling
The original story of The Ugly Duckling is fairly similar to Disney’s rendition. However, there was much more violence aimed at the young swan in the original story.
The moral of the story is ultimately letting go of the past and learning to love yourself.

The Teapot
While Disney never told the story of H.C. Andersen’s The Teapot, many think that the inspiration for Mrs. Pots in Beauty and the Beast was taken from this story. The Teapot is about an old prideful teapot looking back on her life. While she lies smashed and discarded in a pile, looking back she found great meaning and usefulness in becoming a flower pot, even after she was first broken.

The Little Mermaid
This is possibly the most well known film adaptation from Andersen’s stories, but it differs greatly from the movie. In Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, the mermaid falls in love with a prince so she goes to him at great sacrifice to herself, but he marries another woman. She has the choice of murdering the prince to get her old life back or dying. She refuses to kill him and then turns into sea foam and becomes an air spirit doing good deeds until she can earn a soul.