From Stanny’s Book Illustration Studio he moved to press illustration. He published in the magazines: Magazyn Gazety Wyborczej, Polityka, Newsweek, Harvard Business Review, the Polish edition of Playboy (illustrations for texts by Hanna Bakuła), and was a graphic designer at Machina. He also undertook random commissions, such as designing labels for Cola. Socha’s work is a display of pedantry, a revue of colours, a play on irony and, above all, humour without a cackle. And to think that he spent a week working on a satirical drawing for Professor Stanny...
After more than two decades of association with press illustration, he said: enough! He was motivated to create images for a book by the international success of Maps by Mizielińscy. In an interview with Andrzej Palacz for the magazine Wydawca, he talked about the beginnings of his collaboration with the publishing house Dwie Siostry:
[...] I sent the publisher a piece of work based on an illustration from an old atlas of nature; I put in it insects I had invented: some butterflies, dragonflies, ladybirds. I liked the work, but the idea of fantasy insects did not excite me – the publishing house wants to publish books that are not only beautiful but also educational [...]. At one point I mentioned that my dad was a beekeeper. “Then make a book about bees,” – Ewa Stiasny said. And as if someone had then connected me to an energy source, I felt that this was my subject.
Together with the author of the text, Wojciech Grajkowski, they created a large-format album about the kingdom of bees – captivating with detailed knowledge and dense illustrations, amusing trivia and comical drawings, original associations and peculiar graphic solutions. Socha’s illustrations, although conceptually inspired by old botanical atlases, come alive under the influence of boldly composed colours, diverse shapes and over-scaled objects. Although they are generally flat and lack a three-dimensional effect, they attract with their richness of detail. The Book of Bees (2015) quickly gained international acclaim and has been translated into more than twenty languages.
Three years later, the duo Socha&Grajkowski repeated their success and scripted a large-format educational book – this time the protagonists were trees. The biologist’s text, filled with interesting facts, consolidated the work of the illustrator’s imagination. Although the subject matter on the surface looks more monotonous than the beekeeping world, The Book of Trees (2018) is even more intricately constructed: each branch is bent in a different direction, a separate encyclopaedia could be created from the shapes of the leaves and it is not so easy to find two identical shades of green. Not surprisingly, it takes Socha about two years to complete one book. Both Bees and Trees are not merely collections of interesting anecdotes, but a kind of tribute to nature. By showing the inner system of dependence, they teach respect and draw attention to the future of the planet. In a conversation with Emilia Padoł for Onet, the illustrator expressed his wish:
