Research

Geometry, op art and posters, and what we built from them

Notes on Fangor, Stańczak, Jarema, Kobro, Żarnower, Gołkowska, Abakanowicz, the Polish School of Posters and the Cyrk circus posters, turned into a list of motifs. Every card below is either drawn live by the generator or still a rough sketch.

What the sources say

The school

Economy of form, expressive irony and new lettering. In the 1960s and 70s artists also worked with abstraction and op art, including blurred circles and waves of color. Wikipedia PL

Zamecznik

A poster as "a mathematical operation": two or three elements, built from prefabricated parts. Geometric repetition, inversions, hand lettering, restrained palettes. Sound drawn as an oscillogram zigzag or waves spreading in circles. FAF

Fangor and Stańczak

Fangor: pulsating squares of luminous color ringed by darker, softly diffusing bands. Stańczak, who gave op art its name in 1964: narrow vibrating stripes, straight and wavy, concentric squares, grids. Fangor, Stańczak

Jarema

Abstract paintings and sculptures that take their forms from music and dance: organic shapes, rhythm and movement. A founder of the Kraków Group in 1932. AWARE, Wikipedia

Żarnower and Kobro

Żarnower founded Blok, the first Polish constructivist group, and made geometric works, photomontage and election posters. Kobro built spatial sculptures from 1922 to 1939, strict architectural structures of flat planes. JWA, AWARE

Gołkowska and Abakanowicz

Gołkowska: reliefs from wooden blocks, rhythm and texture, and her Open Systems of 1968. Abakanowicz: the Abakans of the 1960s, monumental woven forms that hang from the ceiling. Wikipedia, NMWA

Stryjeńska

A Slavic art deco from folk costume and ornament: flat, saturated and decorative. culture.pl

Women in the poster school

Wanda Telakowska is credited with shaping a Polish national style in design. Maria Ihnatowicz, Anna Huskowska and Olga Binder-Siemaszko made posters, but I found no description of their style, so they have no motif yet. Plakacistki PRL-u

Cyrk and Hilscher

One theme, a metaphor, geometric reduction, high-contrast color. Second-generation designers worked in a more restrained, often abstract way. Circopedia

Lenica, Młodożeniec, Świerzy

Lenica: paper cut-outs. Młodożeniec: bright stains in thick black outlines, strong lettering. Świerzy: abstract rhythmic waves of color for Warsaw Autumn. Cinema Waves, Polish Poster

Constructivism

Szczuka, Stażewski, Miller and Strzemiński: Strzemiński's unism (unity of color, line and rhythm), typography built from letters like blocks. Wikipedia, MoMA

Motifs

Built motifs open in the generator with the same recipe. Planned ones are concept sketches.

Palettes that go with them

Zamecznik: black, white and one cold blue or red accent.
Cyrk: saturated primary pairs on cream, with black.
Młodożeniec: pink, yellow, green and orange on white with black line.
Constructivists: red, black and cream.
Jarema: blue, vermilion and ochre on warm paper. Our choice, not sourced.
Blok: red, black, cream and mustard. Our choice.
Kobro: primary red, blue and yellow with white and black. Our choice.
Gołkowska: the browns of wood. From the wooden blocks.
Abakan: earth tones of fiber. Our choice.
Stryjeńska: folk reds and greens with ochre and blue. Our choice.

Caveat

These are style ideas and techniques. The motifs stay generic (stripes, rings, waves, cut-outs), never a reconstruction of a specific poster or its lettering. The descriptions come from public pages about the artists, not from studying the works one by one. The colors for the women artists' motifs are our own choice.