A Slogan Can Be an Image: An Interview With Czesław Bielecki & Mateusz Machalski
We talk to Czesław Bielecki, the author of the concept, and Mateusz Machalski, the creator of the typography of the word-graphic sign ‘Polska. Solidarność dla wolności’ (Poland. Solidarity for Freedom) about the Polish School of Posters, wall inscriptions, tenders and enclosing a story of a country in a logotype.
Anna Cymer: We meet on the occasion of the presentation of the graphic-word sign (slogan) 'Poland. Solidarity for freedom’ you two designed. What is the purpose of such a sign, how does one create country logotypes?
Mateusz Machalski: Since the dawn of time, people have felt the need to identify themselves with signs.
This applies both to the macro scale, when countries and cities create their signs, as well as to micro-companies or even clubs. Small communities, clubs and associations also identify themselves through signs, thus communicating their identity. Country identifications are of course governed by completely different laws than logotypes of companies or clubs. Firstly, because of the number of people represented, and secondly, because of the number of institutional bodies that act on its behalf. In Poland, the core of such a communication is a a coat of arms pattern (an eagle on a shield) hand-drawn by Andrzej Heidrich (based on Professor Kamiński's design), unfortunately, due to the technology, it is hard to reproduce. The project we are talking about and to which I was invited as a person dealing with typography, concerns the creation of a promotional sign for the country, a sign that Poland will be able to present itself with abroad.
AC: What message should be included in such a logotype? How does one tell the story of a country with a sign?
Czesław Bielecki: A study was once conducted on which sign is most strongly associated with Poland. It was the stork that won. Unfortunately, the stork is not suitable to be Poland's promotional sign, if only for the reason that we are not the only country these birds inhabit. And in such a sign there should be something unique, unambiguously associated only with this very one place on earth. The Spaniards in their sign used the work of Joan Miró, a world-renowned artist with a very characteristic style. We do not have such icon-signs, anything that would tell every foreigner from the first glance: this is Poland. There have been many attempts to create such a sign of Poland, not all of them successful, because the issue is not easy.
We decided to reach for a certain cultural code. It was the aesthetics of the masters associated with the Polish School of Posters, Henryk Tomaszewski or Jan Młodożeniec, an important trend in Polish art and design, i.e. playing with type, when a word is immediately a sign, an inscription - a message in which there is no division into letters and image. The meaning of our sign is that the slogan that appears in it is not an inscription that is explained or supplemented with an illustration. Using a neologism, such a word image seems to me the ideal of a logotype.
MM: A letter as a construct and an entity can operate in two parallel worlds, in the literary world as a record of specific sounds, but also in the visual world. Because each letter, apart from its sound meaning, can also carry a certain emotion. The typeface of the letters is of great importance, it affects those who read them. One wouldn’t print the Bible using the Helvetica typeface, because everyone would feel the dissonance between the content and the character of these letters. The Polish School of Posters, which is an outstanding, important experience, and the achievements of its masters are known around the world, proved exactly that the letter as an entity is able to communicate a lot not only at the level of words and literary language, but also visually.
AC: It is not difficult to see in this sign the echoes of the iconic sign of 'Solidarity', designed by Jerzy Janiszewski.
CB: Because this sign is a Polish icon, recognizable around the world and still very much alive. You can still see banners with slogans written in 'Solidarity' font at the demonstrations. It is a sign that people identify with the fight for freedom and dignity. Inspired by it, we have entered into the existing and understandable, constantly evolving cultural code. When I invented this sign two years ago, the words 'freedom' and 'solidarity' had a different meaning and content than they do today, in the face of Russia's aggression against Ukraine, the war taking place right next to us, and the solidarity we are showing to our neighbors.
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Jerzy Janiszewski, poster, 1980, from the collection of Danuta and Jerzy Brukwicki, photo: press materials
MM: Janiszewski's sign is a world-class visual icon that is so strong that it functions at any latitude and appears in various contexts. The proof of its strength is even the fact that the word 'solidaryca' (solidaric or solidarity font) is already an academic term today. It is also a very capacious cultural code in which expressive book covers by Jan Bokiewicz and posters by Jan Młodożeniec could have been created. The strength of this sign is its succinctness, its flair, the impression that it was created with a single gesture of the hand (although, of course, there were hundreds of sketches and years of professional experience behind it).
AC: Was it the Solidarity sign and the cultural code associated with it that was the starting point for this project from the very beginning?
CZ: No. The starting point was the assumption that what must be featured in the sign is the word Poland and a slogan that is supposed to symbolize it. But presented in such a way that it is understandable for everyone, regardless of the language into which it will be translated - because we immediately assumed that the sign would function in many alphabets and languages. And that the slogan will be the Polish flag.
MM: The way in which the sign was to be used demanded a specific mode of thinking about the letter.
It had to adapt to many alphabets and ways of transcription, in which the same words differ not only in shape, but also in the number of letters. Mr. Czesław was very keen to maintain the form of the sign, regardless of whether it was written in Georgian, Hebrew or Hungarian, in which language the word Poland - 'Lengyelország', is simply much longer. What's more: in the Latin alphabet, in Greek or in the Cyrillic alphabet, there are capitals and minuscules, i.e. uppercase and lowercase letters that do not exist, for example, in Hebrew or Chinese - and we had to deal with this and take it into account in the designs. We decided to write in capital letters, so that there would be no dissonance between the individual versions. It was a great challenge to find a typeface of bold, brushed letters that would look similar in many scripts, so that the sign would not lose its aesthetic and ideological connections with the Polish poster art, with the solidarity font, with the aesthetics of a wall inscription.
AC: There is a big age difference between you, and therefore also likely one in opinions and experiences. Did this affect your collaboration?
CB: Working on the concept of this sign, polishing it in different languages, I knew that this project needed a typography specialist. I turned to Jan Bokiewicz for help. And it was he who recommended Mateusz to me as a person who would certainly be up to such a challenge. And although we hadn’t known each other before, we quickly understood the common goal of this project. Our cooperation went perfectly. We are both professionals, which means we are not envious of each other's ideas, we respect each other's competences and trust each other.
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Sketches for the design of the 'Poland. Solidarity for Freedom' sign, design: Czesław Bielecki, typography: Mateusz Machalski
MM: The master and mentor system is still in force at Polish art academies, and this makes it very easy to establish cooperation with older colleagues. In the times I was studying graphic arts, I made numerous friendships with masters. For many years I worked with Andrzej Heidrich, I regularly work with Professor Lech Majewski, with whom we are already preparing the next International Poster Biennale in Warsaw. In the creative industry, this is quite normal and natural, and differences in life experiences or views of the world can only be a creative value. Not to mention the fact that I know many older designers, like the late Professor Rosław Szaybo, who, at the age of over eighty, exceeded many a young person with the clarity and openness of his mind.
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A stage in the design of the typography for the word-graphic sign 'Poland. Solidarity for Freedom'
CB: I am a big supporter of cooperation between professionals from different fields. I do not believe in the synthesis of arts, in the fact that an architect, wanting to decorate a designed building, would create a beautiful sculpture themselves. Rafał Olbiński or Janusz Kapusta, both certified architects, understood this. They left this profession and took up drawing, painting, designing posters, they focused on what they were passionate about, not pretending that you can design buildings and book covers at the same time. Cooperation, looking for a common vision by people from different fields of expertise gives excellent results. In the case of our sign, I had no doubts about inviting to design typography someone who can actually do it well.
AC: Did you look at this type of signs from other countries while designing? What is their aesthetics like?
CB: I wouldn't have dealt with this topic if I hadn't been interested in this type of logotypes before. Our administration still has a problem with choosing the best projects and with understanding what creativity really is. I found out that one of the previous logotypes of Poland was selected through a tender, because a well-known agency declared that it would do it for free. I took it as a slap in the face of the great tradition of Polish graphic arts, of Polish design. It is not serious, that while having world-class artists, such as Tomaszewski or Młodożeniec, Poland as a country has not developed a good logotype.
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Logo of Spain, Sol de Miró, private archives
MM: There are organizations in Poland that have very successful logotypes. In my opinion, the best contemporary implementation of this type is the logo 'Teraz Polska' (Poland Now) by Professor Chyliński, the sign of a white and red wavelet enclosed in a square frame - this is the purity of the message, simplicity and legibility that should characterize such a sign. It is also worth adding that the global trend is to reduce the number of characters used by countries. Their excess distracts the message that should be coherent and consistent. Quite recently, Polish ministries unified their visual communication - now you can actually see that each minister represents the same 'company' - the government, that they have a common goal. It is not only better as a message addressed to the world, but also cheaper - it allows for a number of savings, because everyone has common promotional materials or templates for presentations. Today, such an approach is also important and needed.
Translated from Polish by Michał Abel-Pelczar
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