Bronisław Zelek – W zaklętej krainie liter / In the enchanted land of letters by Małgorzata Bartosik

Published March 27, 2023

In the enchanted land of letters is an upcoming book about Bronisław Zelek (1935–2018), Polish poster designer, type designer and painter.

Zelek was a brilliant artist, loved typography and operated it masterfully in his designs. He confessed that “the letter has haunted me all my life” – type is present in most of his works. Typography fascinates me as well, it “attacks” me literally everywhere, including when looking at Zelek’s letterforms. The project hence was born out of our shared passion – the love for letters.

Bronisław Zelek is mainly known as a representative of the Polish School of Posters. He designed more than a hundred of them! In the 1970s, he started designing typefaces, the most popular being New Zelek, which has been used in many projects in Poland and around the world for almost 50 years, for example in Microsoft’s 1980 logo. The last field where Zelek realized himself was painting, creating abstract pictures with his own original approach.

What will you find in the book?
– the story of Bronislaw Zelek
– extensive photo material
– Zelek’s previously unpublished poem “Scent of the taiga”
– historical background
– an essay by Zelek’s girlfriend, Hertha Grimm

For the book, I used three typefaces:
– New Zelek Pro by Threedotstype, which is a digitization of the original New Zelek from 1973
– Sztos by Mateusz Machalski, which is a digital and individually interpreted version of Baccarat from 1922
– Alegreya by Juan Pablo del Peral

The book will have 256 pages and bilingual text in Polish and English. It’s currently available for preorder. If you want to support the project and secure a copy, head over to Kickstarter.com. But don’t wait for too long: the crowdfunding campaign will end on March 31, 2023.

Mecanorma brochures with all five type styles designed by Zelek and produced by the French manufacturer of dry transfer lettering: New Zelek, Zelek Boldline, Zelek Bold, Zelek Shadline, and Zelek Black

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FontsInUse

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