About modern polish posters, road signs and not only that
Creative Poland
For those who interested in graphic design or planning to visit Poland
In the world of graphic design, Poland is known for its School of Posters with incredible surreal plots with body metamorphosis.
AIRPLANE.1984. Witold Dybowski
Terms of Endearment. 1983. Andrzej Pagowski
Alien.1979, Jakub Erol
Cabaret.1972. Wiktor Gorka
In this story I do not want to speak about old polish posters, I want to share my conclusions about state of modern design in Poland. I have been in different countries, and with all the great contribution of these countries to world design, not one of them seemed to be so creative as Poland.
1 // Art on the streets
The first thing you notice when you come to the Poland is that everywhere on the streets there are small posters and stickers, decorated with drawings and text. For those who like to see closely at such things, Poland is a God’s gift. Many consider it vandalism, but creative person has tremble with excitement when he or she sees it.
Surprisingly, the poster art in Poland lives and continues to develop. There are still stand old-fashioned rounded pillars for playbills, on which hang a variety of creative posters. Some of them continue the old painting technique and surrealistic plots:
Some created using modern techniques, but are no less interesting:
Polish poster art is a national treasure and is maintained at the state level — often poster contests are sponsored by city authorities and government organizations. In some of them, foreign citizens may also take part, for example, in the International Poster Biennial (Warsaw, Poland).
2 // Road signs
Perhaps I would not even pay attention to the Polish road signs if I had not seen this sign with a girl and a giant lollipop. At first glance, this sign reminded me of a Banksy’s Girl with Balloon. After a small research, I realised that the Poles are also very creative with road signs:
Firstly, this unexpectedly detailed road sign means that the pedestrian crossing is often used by children. This is the brightest and most interesting road sign I have ever seen. If you know something more interesting, please share it with me.
А car lying on its side warns of an “accident”. Without no doubt, this is a very logical pictogram, and I don’t understand why it is not used anywhere in the world except Poland and Zimbabwe.
The sign where the bike flies over the Japanese sun reminded me of the poster for the movie “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” by Steven Spielberg. It means the beginning or end of the regional cycling route. Such a red circle is used in Poland only in this particular road sign. I wonder how the creators of the sign had the idea to use this particular symbol in an ambiguous interpretation of the “beginning or end”?
According to my humble search this road sign is unique — there is no individual sign warning that the road marking has been painted recently, in any country in the world.
When I first saw this sign, I thought it was beer tap truck on a shore. But it actually turned out to be vehicle with goods liable to pollute water. This sign is used by some European countries.
A sign indicating the number of bends of the road left and right. Minimal, interesting and clear message.
Some signs are interesting because of the way they were drawn. Very detailed road signs about all kinds of accidents. Also unusual are hospital and hotel signs.
3 // Poster Museum
At the moment, the Poster Museum at Wilanów is the only offline poster museum in the world. On June 20, 2019, second poster museum will open in New York — the Poster House. Also, in Manhattan there is a Gallery called Poster Museum which was opened by collector Phillip Williams, but it is rather a vintage poster store than museum.
The Polish Poster Museum was opened as far back as 1966 and at the moment 36 thousand Polish and 25 thousand foreign posters are kept in its fund. During this time the museum held 24 International Poster Biennale in Warsaw.
This museum is located in one of the distant districts of Warsaw — Wilanów. From the center of Warsaw, you can get there by bus in half an hour (on Mondays, by the way, admission is free). the museum includes a separate small building with a courtyard, where additional expositions take place during the summer. At the entrance there is a cash desk and a small store with merch, then one large exhibition hall, divided into sections. Exhibition themes are constantly changing, I got on the topic of the dangers of the Internet. Below are the posters of the winners of this poster contest. If you are interested in other photos of this exhibition, you can find them at the end of the article.
4 // Polish Poster Galleries
There are a lot of poster galleries in Poland. These are small shops that sell famous Polish posters of various sizes and on various merch.
I visited different galleries of Warsaw and Krakow, but most of all for the price and variety of posters I liked the gallery in the Old part of Krakow — the Cracow Poster Gallery. There you can look and examine by touch all the posters in a pleasant atmosphere and in addition to any purchase get a gift ☺ (I bought three postcards and received two more).
In this story, I shared my opinion about Poland. I do not agitate anyone to go to Poland purposefully for design tourism, but if you suddenly find yourself in Poland, I will be glad if the information from this article is going to be useful to you.
Read my other article in English:
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Thank you for attention☺
