Tread on a Snake by Hiromi Kawakami
Why the eye? Because it unfailingly attracts our attention. And if its image is still modified, that's it: alarm sirens go off in our brains: Beware, something is wrong!
2023
Raymond Chandler crime series
I first read Chandler in old Polish paperbacks. Their ingenious design from the era of scarcity economics inspired mine, for which I won the Most Beautiful Polish Book Award!
2023
Susan Sontag paperback redesign
Each cover of Susan Sontag's essays features an excerpt from the text. I wanted the books to be inexpensive yet distinctive, hence the covers' high-end coloured cardboard.
2023
Johnson's Largesse of the Sea Maiden
So far, we have published two Denis Johnson's books in Karakter. Some people are surprised by their modest size. That was my intention: small, they force a more intimate contact.
2023
Lord Nevermore by Agneta Pleijel
A cult novel by a Swedish author about an unusual friendship between two real-life Polish characters from the early 20th century. Two men and therefore two islands on the cover.
2023
Frantz Fanon & Angela Y. Davis
The cover cardboard has a beautiful deep orange color and is screen-printed with black paint of the asphalt-like consistency, so you can take the book to the streets to demonstrate.
2022
Essays on literature book series
Bright stripes and silver hotstamping, and that's it! OK, and a snippet (just to have an excuse to use more Benton Sans Wide typeface). Not every project needs to show off!
2022
Abstract geometry for Filip Springer
Architecture, modernism, urbanism – you might think that Springer, an acclaimed author, writes only for specialists. And yet it always turns out that he is writing simply about people.
2021
Tanizaki and other Japanese classics
I'm a sucker for fancy, high-quality coloured paper, and I was so happy to combine it with bespoke calligraphy by a Krakow-based Japanese artist on the covers of this series!
2020
The Exhibition Path by Marcin Wicha
The third book by Nike Prize winner Marcin Wicha tells the story of the life of the Ukrainian painter Kazimir Malevich and his Black Square, and of revolutions, both political and artistic.
2020
An Elemental Thing by Eliot Weinberger
These essays are a unique way of looking at the beauty of the world. The cover shows a natural history museum diorama with the title scattered among prehistoric sea creatures.
2020
Mortal Engines anniversary edition
In these stories by Stanisław Lem, wizards and dragons are replaced by wise robots and power-hungry machines. Full of wit, humour, intelligence: simply timeless.
2021
Stanisław Lem's ruptured biography
A biography of one of the great SF masters and the most popular Polish writer to date. I wanted the cover design to reflect Lem's wartime anguish and eternal fracture.
2021
Alex Kerr, Lost Japan book design
A unique introduction to Japanese culture. I wanted the book to stand out on a bookshelf, with its half-bound cover featuring a mesmerising woodblock print by Kawase Hasui.
2019
Stramer – a novel by Mikołaj Łoziński
A Jewish family saga from pre-war Poland. I found the inspiration in the novel's final lines describing the sun setting over a sea. The cover layout is a distant echo of the image.
2019
Karakter literary fiction series
As the books here are so different from one another, there is no point in them looking the same. While they maintain a uniform format and interior layout, each cover is unique.
2019
Mona Chollet, The Witches
Mona Chollet's book on different forms of women’s oppression focus mostly on a present moment, so I never really entertained the idea of showing a lady on a broom on the cover.
2019
Karakter essay series 2015–2019
Series of titles on feminism, political oppression, and activism. The books had to be affordable, hence their small format and relatively inexpensive choice of material.
2019
Babel: twenty major world languages
Everyone adores kittens. I dug out a 19th-century illustration of a fiery little cat. Cute on its own, when repeated twenty times, it adds a bit of old-fashioned charm to the cover.
2019
Manufactures. Ingenuity Among Us
A foray into DIY esthetics of Polish non-professional design: gazebos, gates, garden decorations. They are, at the same time, heart-warmingly charming and eerily unsettling.
2018
Pass It On. A story of a designer's life
Book on design, on learning, and teaching by an experienced scholar and designer. The dust jacket is printed with three Pantones to make sure that the colors are RGB vivid.
2019
How I Stopped Loving Design
What other font than Times New Roman could I use on the cover of Marcin Wicha's book 'How I Stopped Loving Design'? Besides, this is the only cover I ever created in MS Word!
2017
The European Poet of Freedom series
A poetry volume series designed for a biannual poetry festival held in Gdansk, Poland. Seven books, each with a distinctive abstract uncoated stock jacket.
2017
Michael Herr, Dispatches
A key work on the Vietnam War, and perhaps THE book on any war. The design was a challenge simply because there are so many images of the war it was tough to pick the perfect one.
2017
Frank Lloyd Wright, Modern Architecture
Wright is looking fiercely from the cover, and though I am not into ornaments, I couldn’t refrain from hot-stamping one (along with the author’s name) on the spine of the book.
2016
Wade Graham, Dream Cities
What were the different architectural utopias of the 20th century, how were they successful, and where they failed, explains Wade Graham in his book on urbanism and architecture.
2016
Selected works by Ryszard Kapuściński
Limited edition of Ryszard Kapuściński’s most recognizable works. For years the most famous Polish non-fiction writer, widely read abroad, he is still a big name in Poland.
2016
Experiencing Architecture
Book for those puzzled by architecture, no matter modern or old. The cover features a photo of children playing on a rooftop of a famous Unite d’Habitation designed by Le Corbusier.
2015
Gropius, The Scope of Total Architecture
Book by a legendary architect, who founded Bauhaus. I wanted the cover to reflect the author's spirit: deeply humane, focused on well-being of society and individuals.
2014
Venturi, Learning from Las Vegas
Oversaturations, halftone patterns and blueish tint of the original 1971 edition. Rigid (think: Swiss) design paired with a dollop of American post-modernism (thanks, Emigre).
2013
Widzieć/Wiedzieć – To See/To Know
First Polish anthology of the most important texts on graphic design. Almost 500 hundred pages, two colors inside, hardcover, bound in turquoise paper. First print run sold in no time!
2013
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