Był sobie
król…

The books by Mariusz Wollny tells the history of Poland in a very interesting and accessible way. The stories of the Piast, the Jagiellonian dynasty and the Elected kings are three of the four planned parts of Był sobie król. The combination of chronicler’s record and a simple, straightforward narration makes it a family book. Zuza Wollny’s amazing illustrations embellish the story.

The 160 × 240 mm format made it possible to design a column for the good number of rows with the optimal number of characters per line. At the same time, it allowed to keep the elegant look of the book which harmonizes with an non-typical format of the illustrations. I used the first Polish typeface for the typesetting. The typeface was designed from scratch by Adam Półtawski in the digital adaptation of Janusz Marian Nowacki.
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Photos from production process: Mirek Szymański & me.

The best historical book of 2017 in the plebiscite “Collected history” organized by the portal Histmag.org and Granice.pl (category: Non-trivial history, internet users’ award).
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The publication is accompanied by Royal Black Peter (kind of Old Maid) cards, calendars with illustrations from the book and other things.