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

The project attained its peak and underwent its most influential period in the 1960s and 1970s.Given its cultural significance, the opportunity to design its cover was regarded as a prestigious distinction within the artistic community. Consequently, Projekt emerged as a distinguished advocate of modern 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 Board

The first art director of the journal was co-founder and co-editor, Józef Mroszczak. He regularly created graphic mockups for the issues by hand. Beginning in 1962, Hubert Hilscher took over as art director and introduced a new visual direction for the magazine. His innovative layouts brought a sense of freshness and modernity that more effectively aligned with Projekt's evolving mission and identity. He resigned two decades later, along with the entire editorial team of Projekt, in response to the imposition of martial law by the authorities aimed at suppressing the anti-communist opposition in Poland. Anticipating the imminent implementation of stringent censorship measures, the editorial board collectively chose to step down. Following Hilscher, Stanisław Wieczorek became the art director.

Journal Content

While the journal, as its name implies, focused on visual arts and design, it also included coverage of product design and architecture in various 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.

Contributing 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, in contrast to socialist realism. However, the editors made sure to avoid political entanglement. Notable artists include painters (Henryk Stażewski, Kajetan Sosnowski, Stanisław Fijałkowski, Jerzy Nowosielski, Jan Berdyszak, Ryszard Winiarski), textile 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) theatre directors (Tadeusz Kantor, Józef Szajna, Jerzy Grotowski), as well as artists-innovators (Magdalena Abakanowicz, Antoni Starczewski. Władysław Hasior, Józef Łukomski). The journal also featured the members of the Polish School of Posters (Tadeusz Trepkowski and Józef Mroszczak, Henryk Tomaszewski, Jan Lenica and Roman Cieślewicz). Projekt played a crucial part in promoting Polish posters on an international scale.

Covers

The magazine is distinguished by its distinctive graphic design. The covers, in particular, leave a strong visual impression and are generally minimalist in form. They feature no title headings or commercial inscriptions; instead, the magazine's name, Projekt, appears unobtrusively in the upper left corner. The typography employed throughout the journal reflects a commitment to simplicity, typically executed with limited means and a restrained aesthetic. The covers, often resembling posters, were typically abstract compositions that aligned with the modernist sensibilities of the time. Notably, the final issue published in 1983 (Issue No. 153) features a stark, monochromatic image of a bald man whose face appears pressed into a wall—an evocative and haunting visual metaphor that reflects the broader sociopolitical atmosphere of the period. In addition to its symbolic interpretation, the image also evokes the impression that the man is breathing underwater—a possible metaphor for suffocation or constraint. Given that the entire editorial team had resigned the previous year, the cover may be interpreted as a visual commentary on the state of artistic freedom under increasing censorship. The cover may also allude to Jan Szczepański’s inaugural article, “Faces,” in which the author examines the interplay between facial features and personality traits. Szczepański further interrogates what national portrait galleries reveal about a nation’s identity, its sociopolitical condition, and the collective psyche. This particular cover was designed by Lech Majewski, a Polish-American multidisciplinary artist internationally acclaimed for his poetically charged and visually arresting films, which frequently blur the boundaries between cinema and art installation. 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.

Layout and Typography

The magazine's format closely approximates B4 dimensions. Each issue typically comprises between 80 and 90 pages. The layout generally follows a two- or three-column grid structure, with a one-centimeter gutter separating the columns. Headlines and titles do not adhere to a standardized font; instead, typographic choices are tailored to suit the character of each article. Similarly, typographic hierarchy is not consistently maintained but is instead adjusted to reflect the nature of the presented content. The table of contents appears at the beginning of each issue and is organized into thematic sections corresponding to design and art. The journal features numerous color and black-and-white photographs, which play an integral role in its visual and editorial identity.