The best print in Poland
Fat and lipstick red, Print Control is sponsored by Poland’s Ministry of Culture, and designed to celebrate the country’s best printed matter. It looks a bit like an extremely pretty catalogue, with dedicated sections for publications, ‘visual identities’ and artist interviews. Some of the design on display is commercial: a chocolate box and a packet of peanut butter sweeties each get full-page spreads. Other projects are stranger: one book, designed to accompany an exhibition on miracles, has a layer of black thermochromic paint on its cover. When you rub the black, a rainbow coloured image of a baby angel appears — a design miracle !
The loveliest section of this magazine is its beginning. Showcasing a series of posters, the pages are often strikingly simple. In one poster, advertising a one woman comedy show, a naked female body is depicted in water, surrounded by alligators. Another poster, for the artist Monika Kopczewska’s solo painting exhibition, features just two joyful words: COME INSIDE.
There is something wonderfully nerdy about a piece of print devoted to other pieces of print. Flicking through Print Control is a kind of window into the Polish cultural calendar for the years 2018-19 — that’s more poignant now the future of cultural events is uncertain.
