Communication Arts Jury

I am absolutely thrilled to tell you that I have the honor of joining the Communication Arts jury panel for 2023 Design Competition!

Back when I was in high school (it was very much not an art school) my arts teacher had some CA annuals and they seemed to come from a different world (I didn’t even know what a job of a graphic designer meant), an utterly fascinating world that I felt drawn to. I was so excited when we realized we could participate in the CA competition and as a result we won our own Awards of Excellence. But never ever did the 18-year-old me (or, you know, older me) think I would be asked to judge other people’s entries. I am really looking forward to seeing all the amazing work submitted this year!

Book Exhibition

Our exhibition in the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk is open for a few more days (until Thursday) if you feel like dropping by. Otherwise, please enjoy a few photos that we took.

The gallery space is cozy, with a few charming details, including an old doorway. We chose a simple, minimalistic arrangement based on black and white, with coral-red accents. Since most of the book designs include patterns or ornaments we used those to design symbols so that each book is represented by one. We replaced most captions with those symbols, referring the viewer to the boards on the wall so that they can participate in a small riddle. (They don’t have to, of course, because it’s not hard to figure out which board goes with which book anyway.) From the boards they can learn details about the book they’re looking at: its client, technical specs, grid.

Our Exhibition, with Books

We’ve been busy working on a small exhibition of our books that will happen in our alma mater (and also a workplace of one of us), the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. We will be showing a few of our books together with technical information about their design. If you’re around and are curious to see in the flesh the books we’ve been showing here, do drop by, either for the opening on the 20th or until the beginning of March. If it’s too far or otherwise inconvenient, we will share photos later. For now please enjoy the poster.

Polish Books in Taiwan

We’ve been mostly stuck at home for the longest time now but at least one of the books we designed got to travel far. Theodor Joseph Blell Inventory for the Castle Museum of Malbork was awarded last year in the Most Beautiful Polish Books Competition and together with the other winners it is exhibited in Taiwan Design Museum in Taipei! We are sharing with you a few photos we received courtesy of the Museum and below please find a fragment of the press release. This is quite exciting for us!

What an interesting typography in this poster.

What is the meaning of a ‘beautiful’ book and the ‘virtue’ underneath the surface of a book? These books are not just any books – this will be made clear at Not Just Library of Taiwan Design Research Institute, where the very rare, extraordinary and first exhibition of The Most Beautiful Polish Books takes place in early 2023 during the Lunar New Year from 17 January to 19 March. Curated by the Sasson Kung – an expert in European graphic design and Jessie Chen – the publisher of a graphic design zine Circle, the exhibition is hosted and organized by the Taiwan Design Research Institute with contributions from Polish Office in Taipei and the full, unconditional support from The Polish Association of Book Publishers (PTWK) – bringing the magnificent results of the Most Beautiful Polish Books competition 2021 (the 62nd in its long history) to the audience in Taiwan. The Institute also liaises with Taipei Book Fair Foundation to jointly celebrate the Guest of Honor – Poland at the Taipei International Book Exhibition this year. […] Collectively these books portray the breadth and depth of subjects (history, arts, music, theatre, movies, social issues…) and demonstrate the mastery in editing, visual and graphic arts (some subtle, some bold, classic, modern, simplistic, intricate, eccentric… but always functional) with the support of exquisite printing crafts in contemporary Polish publishing industry. They manifest the unique ‘beautiful’ viewpoints and styles, remind the audience of the great achievements of Polish graphic design throughout its history (the renowned Polish School of Posters in 1950s–60s) and prove how design could evolve without losing its essence, heritage and identity.

From Taiwan Design Museum materials

On the left in the back you can see the Blell cover adapted for a promo poster!

All the photos in the post except for this one by Taiwan Design Museum. This one just to remind you the book.

Happy New Year!

May the New Year bring you joy and health – and whatever you felt the old one was lacking.

Merry Christmas!

May you have a wonderful Christmas time, joyful, peaceful and delightful!

---

It was the longest hiatus that started with our summer holidays and lasted, well, till now. It didn’t happen for any dramatic reason, we just didn’t have enough time or organizational skills to make the life/work/social media combo work so only one thing of those could be put on a break. However. We’re back. We will strive for regularity and even if we slip occasionally, we promise not to disappear for such inordinately long periods. Back to Christmas celebrations now, thanks for sticking by us!

“Regnum” Book with a CA Award

As the title says, we are very happy to announce that the book we recently shared with you, Regnum defendo… designed for the Castle Museum of Malbork, received a Communication Arts Award for book design. We thank the jurors for recognizing our work and thanks to the client for letting us go a little wild with it.

Blell Inventory Awarded

We are very happy to share with you the fact that Theodor Joseph Blell Inventory received awards in The Most Beautiful Polish Books competition. The book received an Honorary Mention and a Special Award for perfect typesetting. This book, which we described in detail here, was an exciting challenge and we are delighted to have it noticed, also in its more technical, less flashy aspect that nonetheless cost us a lot of time and ingenuity. (Those tables!)