Behind The Design: Cheshire Cat

Hi All,

Welcome to the start of a blog post series called "Behind The Design". It's fairly self explanatory - each time I will talk about a different design available in my store, and cover how it was designed and any history associated with it.

The design we are looking into this time is "Cheshire Cat":

A spiral notebook with the cover depicting Tenniel's "Alice and the Cheshire Cat" image. In the image it shows Alice looking up at the Cheshire Cat, who is laying on a tree branch above her.

Cheshire Cat Spiral Notebook

Originally called "Alice and the Cheshire Cat" this image was created by John Tenniel in 1865. Tenniel did all the illustrations in the original version of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.

Fun fact: did you know that in the book, the Mad Hatter is never described? The collective understanding of what the Mad Hatter looks like is entirely due to Tenniel's illustration.

Drawing of the tea party scene in Alice in Wonderland. Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the March Hare are sat at a table with teacups.

The fact that his illustrations can still bring joy over a century later is incredible.

I chose to include the Cheshire Cat piece as he is a particular favourite character of mine. But there are so many excellent illustrations in that book, we may see more of them in this store in future.

You can view all the products with this design available here.