PLOP #02—Polish Design Revue

What is the Polish poster today: a monument to past glory, a decoration for apartments, a tool of struggle, or zombie design? The second issue of PLOP—Polish Design Revue takes on one of the biggest legends of Polish graphic design: the poster.

PLOP #02 does not offer another polite story about masters, the canon, and the golden age of the Polish Poster School. Instead, it asks what the poster is today and where it is going. Does it still work as a tool of communication, a form of artistic expression, a medium of protest and presence in public space? Or has it become a ritual repeated by the design scene, almost like a para-religion?

Published by Slanted Publishers in collaboration with Threedotstype and the Polish Graphic Design Foundation, the second issue of PLOP looks at the poster between street and gallery, protest and decoration, paper and screen, legend and real life.

The issue features a conversation with Ola Jasionowska about the poster as civic practice, an essay by Katarzyna Matul on the poster as an export product, identity, and the legacy of communist-era Poland, a conversation with Karolina Pietrzyk about typography, collaboration, and controlled experiment, and Paweł Starzec’s photographic record of the visual aspects of protests. PLOP also gives voice to international curators and organizers of poster events, who discuss AI, biennials, festivals, and the myths of national design schools.

The issue includes illustrations by Klaudia Kozińska and the typeface Dioda, designed by Jan Estrada-Osmycki.

PLOP #02 is an issue about the poster and the post-poster. It asks difficult questions and gives no easy answers—but it still loves the poster.

Edited by Lars Harmsen, Marian Misiak, and Rene Wawrzkiewicz, this publication was designed by Lars Harmsen and Marian Misiak. The 32-page volume is presented in a 21×29.7 cm format and is published in English. It was offset printed in full colour and bound as saddle-stitched brochure.