Imaginary Polish covers for classic books

1 2 88505 1542390 Marc-Storrs-And-Rob-Morphy--On-Track-Of-Unknown-Animals

Poland has a long history of innovative book jacket design, as evidenced by a new book titled 1000 Polish Book Covers. To shine a light on this rich tradition of design, 50 Watts held a contest asking contestants to "design the 'Polish' edition' of their favorite book." Above left, the winner, Ben Jones's design for George Orwell's "1984." Above right, Marc Storrs and Rob Morphy's cover for Bernard Heuvelmans' "On the Track of Unknown Animals." "Polish Book Cover Contest Winners"

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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buddy66

I used to have a book of Polish poster art. Wow. Back in the 60s they were head and shoulders above everyone else. I snitched at least a dozen ideas from it.
Anonymous

This was very interesting. So much so, that I felt the urge to make my own imaginary cover (for R.U.R. by Karl Capek). For some reason I chose to do Russian rather than Polish but it was fun to do anyway. Here it is for anyone who might like to see it. http://frohickey.deviantart.com/art/Russian-R-U-R-Cover-212060014
allybeag

When I was at school, longer ago than I care to admit, I had a penpal in Poland, who set up a subscription for me for a Polish art magazine. I couldn’t read the Polish text, but the artwork and graphics were absolutely amazing, as were the cartoons whose humour was mostly visual so knowledge of the language wasn’t necessary. I was studying Art at school at the time, and I think those magazines influenced me quite a lot. Polish design wasn’t widely known about on our side of the Iron Curtain in those days; I’m glad there’s more awareness now.
Phanatic

Somethingawful’s photoshop goons did a run of Polish-style movie posters a while back:

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/polish-movie-posters.php
Anonymous

Wonderful things indeed! Thank you.
JArmstrong

I was raised by parents who love Polish “Cyrk” posters. I then became enthralled with commercial Polish poster art in general, with a specific love for their takes on some of my favorite films (The Blues Brothers ,for example.

And now, it seems, I am on to Polish book jacket design… exxxxxxcellent.
Antinous / Moderator

Doing a GIS for “***** cover art” for any book, particularly SF books, will turn up some amazingly weird stuff.