Now I know my ABCs

As our focus drifts now a little to babies (and as we did some huge bookshelf cleaning recently), we remembered one of the first artsy books that our son liked: ABC by Bruno Munari. Bruno Munari was quite a fascinating Italian artist and children’s books were just a small part of his wide artistic and scientific explorations – but it’s the one we’re most familiar with. ABC is a classic letters primer, which uses very elegant, high-contrast typography and lovely, slightly old-fashioned illustrations. While this might not be a book in which you find new tiny details during each re-reading, its very simplicity appeals to children and its high aesthetic level develops their sensitivity.

This is one gorgeous onion.

Śliwka T-shirt

You might remember a few weeks ago we shared our experience of visiting the exhibition of works by Karol Śliwka, a brilliant Polish modernist designer. Now, we’re not usually people who buy a lot of merchandise on such occasions (catalogs, sure) but this time one of the gadgets was a T-shirt with purple logos by Śliwka and we couldn’t resist.

The T-shirt is sold by Pan tu nie stał, a Polish clothing company whose products reference the time of the People’s Republic of Poland (not a great time in Polish history, strictly speaking, but full of things people feel nostalgic about). The company uses a lot of humor not just in their designs but also, as we discovered, in packaging and marketing materials.

Most of the jokes are fairly difficult to explain outside of Poland (all the elements of packaging reference slogans from old products, from work safety posters etc.) but you can still appreciate the design (modern) and attention paid to all the details. This is how the T-shirt is packed, into gray-paper envelope with well-designed graphic elements and old-fashioned slogans:

The back of the envelope.

Tags.

And the T-shirt itself.

Wyspiański: The Catalog

Last time we talked about the huge Wyspiański exhibition we saw in Kraków and how impressed we were by the number of exhibits. But because of a mess of circumstances we didn’t get to spend as much time on the exhibition as we wanted to so we were glad to find a large, reliable catalog, presenting all the objects with descriptions.

(We don’t necessarily agree with all the design choices made for the catalog but we don’t know how it was created and under what circumstances. We’re mostly just happy to have such a huge, nicely printed book full of Wyspiański’s work.)

Wyspiański Exhibition

This week we went on a somewhat eventful trip to Kraków, where we visited a large exhibition of works by Stanisław Wyspiański.

Wyspiański (1869–1907) is one of the most brilliant Polish writers who also created wonderful art in different genres, particularly pastels. But the exhibition in Kraków focuses more on his ventures into applied arts, which makes it particularly interesting as he dabbled in pretty much everything. He designed theater costumes, furniture and particularly elements of large-scale interior decoration (including stained glass windows) for churches.

A kids lesson about designing and creating stained glass windows.

Wyspiański was impressively good at drawings resembling Gothic paintings on stained glass.

The exhibition is discreetly but adeptly designed. Here a little ornamental decoration presumably drawn from Wyspiański’s work.

The exhibition shows not only the finished products of his work but also preliminary stages – sketched, designs – which we found fascinating. It might have been too specialized for some visitors but we drank it up.

One room shows better-known works: paintings and pastels,

including this lovely drawing of a boy.

Supposedly this furniture was meant to be uncomfortable so that the city council would not spend too long sitting in it.

Fragment of staircase that we would totally have in our place. It wouldn’t match anything but who cares.

We fully recommend seeing this extensive collection, should you happen to be in Kraków one of these months.

Birthday Post

It’s my birthday and so we refuse to do a regular post. Instead please enjoy these random 35 awesome things.

 

Śliwka Follow-Up: Catalog

Recently we wrote about the exhibition of the works of Karol Śliwka that we saw. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog, which we also bought and are sharing today. The catalog is designed by Patryk Hardziej, one of the creators of the exhibition. It is chock-full of amazing examples of old design, modernist logos and some (though we’d love more) behind-the-scenes images of Śliwka’s work.

The hard cover is wrapped in a folder presenting Śliwka’s work. When it’s folded you only see a grid with logos but unfolding it gives you more information and more images, which is a cool idea.

Śliwka’s tools.

The lead color for the entire publication is a tasteful Pantone purple, which we like a lot.

Summer Cold

Our son has caught a nasty summer cold, which means he’s not sleeping and so neither are we. It’s a zombified household over here. So real posts have to wait a week, but we have a couple of nice recent things we did to share with you then.

Śliwka Exhibition

Last week heat waves defeated us but this week we finally managed to see the exhibition held in the Museum of Gdynia, showing the work of one of the greatest Polish designers, Karol Śliwka.

Śliwka worked for decades in the period of communist regime in Poland when the conditions for graphic design were completely different than they are now (long story). He almost single-handedly introduced logo modernism here and dominated the visual landscape. He created posters, packaging and, most of all, logos, following strict, intellectual rules according to which a mark needs to be the synthesis of ideas that represent a company or an institution in a beautifully geometricized form. What is more, unlike some other modernists’ of the period, Śliwka’s logos are rarely pure geometric experiments: they retain human heart, a sense of humor and joy, despite their minimalist form.

The exhibition shows him as a versatile designer, good with illustration, classically trained but particularly focused on his biggest love, logos (which he actually learned to design by himself, as he studied different disciplines). We thoroughly enjoyed the experience and encourage you to visit the exhibition, should you be in Gdynia soon(ish).

Below you can see the logo for Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Warszawy (The Society of Friends of Warsaw), which is probably our favorite of all Śliwka’s logos, simply because it had no right to work – and it does so well. The letters form the shape of a mermaid with a sword and a shield, the symbol of Warsaw.

A neon made from Śliwka’s signature.

On the wall you can see some of Śliwka’s posters, which he usually designed in a similar way to the logos.

Book and brochure covers.

Postal stamps.

Peace building and in the background a brilliant logo for the Institute of Mother and Child (a medical institution). It’s Lubalin-level brilliance, and we don’t say that lightly.

Packaging for sweets.

These are quite brilliant in the simple decisions made here.

A screen from a short, interesting movie about Śliwka in which, our friend Patryk Hardziej shows to him pages devoted to his work in Taschen’s Logo Modernism. Patryk is one of the creators of the exhibition and a great champion of Śliwka’s work, and he’s been working on popularizing it for a couple of years now.