shelflife by visitor

Design and photography books are, by and large, dime-a-dozen bullshit cranked out by soulless publishers and artsploitational editors. A couple of times a year, however, some editor–obsessively compulsive and freakishly passionate–wrangles up a bunch of whoevers doing whatever and compiles something epic. Plakat Polski is that. I don’t know why anyone’s ever done another poster book since this thing was published. It’s like dragging a horse’s corpse to the gates of a Chernobyl just-ripe with meltdown and expecting to dead that pony just a little more before you kick it some.

Polish designers in the 60’s preemptively destroyed damn-near everything that’s come since. Who knew? I sure didn’t. I was at the NYPL picture library with Monika. I was researching some insane scope of imagery for one of Analog’s earliest graphic lines. Monika comes wandering over with this book she’d found amongst the design surveys–Plakat Polski. You know that feeling you get when you see something and realize that everything else is wrong–it’s always been wrong and you’ve just been contributing to its wrongness? This book is 440 plates-worth of that invisible hand slapping you on those tingly cheeks and yanking the breath from your diaphragm.

I rushed home from the library, pounded my favorite antiquarian book glory-hole and scored two copies. If you’re of strong enough character to stare down your shelves of misguided purchases and backward-ass design appreciation while laughing heartily at your folly, you’d be wise to do the same.