Draft:Projekt: Visual Art and Design Magazine

• Comment: Walls of text aren't articles. Aydoh8^{[what have I done now?]} 12:32, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

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Projekt was a visual art and design journal, which was published in Poland between 1956 and 1997. In total, it had 207 issues, with a maximum of six appearing yearly. It was founded by the Polish architect, Jerzy Hryniewiecki.Several names of important Polish artists are connected to Projekt, including Józef Mroszczak,Tadeusz Kantor, Roman Cieślewicz and Magdalena Abakanowicz. Historical context Projekt reached its pinnacle and lived its golden era around the 60s and 70s.It was so influential that designing its cover meant a true privilege for artists. Consequently, Projekt emerged as a distinguished advocate of Modernist graphic design across both sides of the Iron Curtain around this time, and was playing a major role in promoting Polish posters abroad. The journal continued to be published until 1997, though after the fall of communism in Poland, it lost much of its former influence. Editorial team The first art director of the journal was co-founder and co-editor, Józef Mroszczak. Additionally, he regularly created graphic mockups for the issues simply by hand. From 1962, Hubert Hilscher was the art director, who developed a new direction for the magazine’s image with fresh layouts aligning better with Projekt’s mission. He resigned 20 years later, along with all the editors of Projekt, after the authorities declared martial law to restrain the anti-communist opposition in Poland, due to which the editors anticipated strict censorship arriving soon. Following Hilscher, Stanisław Wieczorek became the art director. Content As the name suggests, the journal was promoting visual arts and design, but among these products and architecture also appeared in the issues. These works were not only from behind the Iron Curtain, but also from the West, which was a unique characteristic as this was very rare at the time. It also appeared in other languages apart from Polish: English, French, German and Russian. Another speciality about the journal was that the covers functioned as posters. Being quite influential, copies of the journal could be found in several art studios, not just in Poland. According to Danuta Wróblewska, a former editor of Projekt, issues appeared in studios in the USSR and even in Japan, alongside posters from Projekt hanging on the wall. Artists Projekt served as a safe channel for artists to express their rebellious imagination despite the political restrictions at the time. The journal was promoting universal aesthetics and “thaw” modernism, a contrast to socialist realism. However, the editors made sure to avoid political entanglement. Having avant-garde ambitions, it was a suitable medium for those aiming for that little creative freedom that was available. Notable artists include painters (Henryk Stażewski, Kajetan Sosnowski, Stanisław Fijałkowski, Jerzy Nowosielski, Jan Berdyszak, Ryszard Winiarski), among fabric designers (Maria T. Chojnacka, Emilia Bohdziewicz, Jolanta Owidzka, Wojciech Sadley, Urszula Plewka-Schmidt), sculptors (Xawery Dunikowski, Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz, Maciej Szańkowski, Alina Szapocznikow), graphic designers (Józef Gielniak, Jerzy Panek, Halina Chrostowska, Józef Pakulski, Lucjan Mianowski) great theatre experimenters (Tadeusz Kantor, Józef Szajna, Jerzy Grotowski), artists-innovators from the other side of the borders (Magdalena Abakanowicz, Antoni Starczewski. Władysław Hasior, Józef Łukomski), and last but not least, members of the Polish School of Posters (Tadeusz Trepkowski and Józef Mroszczak, Henryk Tomaszewski, Jan Lenica and Roman Cieślewicz). As a matter of fact, Projekt played a crucial part in promoting Polish posters on an international scale. Covers The magazine is characterized by excellent graphic design. The covers themselves make a great impression, they are mostly simple in form. They do not have title headings or advertising inscriptions. The name of the magazine "Projekt" is located in the upper left corner. The first page of the cover contains the name of the magazine, the issue, and the year of issue, as well as information about the languages ​​in which the texts are written: Polish, English, Russian, French, and German. Information about the languages ​​is located in the upper right corner. The graphics placed on the covers are of great value in themselves. The power of the graphics lies in simple ideas, usually made using limited means. The color scheme of the covers is mostly limited to using a small number of colors. This asceticism does not in any way take away the power of expression of the graphics on the covers; in fact, it intensifies their strong message. The back side of the cover contains different photos of Polish museum interiors in each issue, along with the address, opening hours, and telephone numbers of the presented museums. 5-6’83 153 Projekt’s covers, or posters, were usually abstract artworks. The last issue of 1983, which was the 153., is portraying a bald man, whose face is stuck in a wall in a monochromatic style. Additionally to this symbolic interpretation, the man seems to be breathing underwater. Since all the previous editors resigned a year earlier, the image could suggest the situation of artistic freedom due to censorship. It may also refer to Jan Szczepański's first article, "Faces". The author analyzes the relationship between the face and personality traits. He wonders what national portrait galleries say about the nation, its state, and collective psyche. This cover was made by Lech Majewski, a Polish-American multidisciplinary artist, who is internationally recognized for his highly poetic and visually stunning films, often blurring the line between cinema and art installation. 1’83 150 The cover features a bust of a man, made using a combination of graphics and collage, with a predominance of black and white colors. The entire cover is gray-brown, the background of the graphics, which takes up about 80 percent of the cover, is black. The outline of a man dressed in a shirt with a tie is drawn with a white line, contrasting strongly with the black background. The man's face is cut out of a sheet of blue-checked paper. On the checkered paper there are two painted blue dots that can be interpreted as eyes. The smile was painted with a red, uneven line. The nose looks as if it was cut out of a black-and-white photo and glued to a checkered paper. Thanks to these procedures, the project seems more three-layered, and with depth. The use of a white line on a black background and the serious clothing of an adult man contrasts with the rather frivolous form of collage and the childish colors used to draw the face. The graphics give rise to thoughts about the duality of human nature or the masks we put on. This may be a reference to the first article of the magazine on masks and their function in different cultures. The author analyzes the hypnotic properties of a mask, whose expressive power is based on transpositions of the image of the human face. The graphics on the covers of the magazine, although they are not signed in any way, introduce the world of the content of the first, most important article of the magazine. About the author of the cover: Cover of Project 1’83/150 - the author is Jan Bokiewicz - a graphic designer and graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, designer of books, leaflets, posters, and stamps for the underground post. Designer of typography, advertisements, and logos. Winner of many competitions. Layout and typography: The magazine format is similar to B4. The number of pages in one magazine is between 80 and 90. Grid: the magazine page is usually divided into two or three columns. The gutter between the columns is one centimeter. The top margin is larger than the bottom, and the outer margin is larger than the inner one. White space is small. Headlines and titles do not have a unified font, which is adapted to the nature of the article. The typographic hierarchy is not maintained and is also adapted to the nature of the presented content. Body copy is written in a sans serif font and justified on both sides. At the beginning of the first paragraph of the article there is an initial, which is a double-sized capital letter. I find the page number from the outer edge of the page. The table of contents is located at the front of the magazine and is divided into thematic sections related to design and art. The photographs are mostly black and white, there are few color photographs. They are in different formats, below them there are captions written in a smaller, italic font.