„In the printing workshop of Professor Chomicz”

“After the war, a Book Graphic Arts Department was established in Kraków, which has been headed from the beginning by Prof. Witold Chomicz. It is a remarkable department, a remarkable workshop, the only one in the country and perhaps even in the world. The typesetting room, with a rich stock of old-type fonts (alongside modern equipment), has a museum and historical character. The workshop also contains old printing machines and presses for hand printing. In short, there are conditions here that make it possible to use traditional means to create the most modern typographic and graphic designs. The professor’s ”printing workshop” is also envied by Germans, French, English and other foreigners, who are also very interested in its original method and teaching principles. These consist in breaking with the traditional notion of the graphic artist as merely an illustrator of books. The book is treated as an architectural form, whose design is developed from A to Z. Thus the choice of typeface, layout, width of margins, pagination, integration of illustrations, the illustrations themselves, title page, cover, dust jacket, etc., are all the work of the graphic designer.

– All our works – the professor emphasized – are experimental prototypes. We are constantly seeking ways to break away from routine and stencil. The result of these searches are charming, ‘carefully crafted’ volumes of poetry by Chudy, Karpowicz, Kern, the poetry of Gałczyński, Tuwim and artistic prints prepared under the professor’s guidance by students and graduates, and then printed – at the cost of enormous labor – in a dozen or several dozen copies, true bibliophile rarities.

Searches are searches, but Professor Chomicz already has about 200 diploma graduates. Five to six graduates leave his department each year. Up to 60 students attend classes. Associated with this workshop are the names of Adam Młodzianowski, Stanisława Töpfer, Zbigniew Rychlicki, Daniel Mróz, Roman Cieślewicz and many, many others who have significantly contributed to the fact that today Polish book design is making a sensation on world markets. And it is precisely the education of a large group of ”book workers” that gives the professor the greatest satisfaction. (…) One listens to the professor with great pleasure in his office behind a … wardrobe – in the passage from the typesetting room to the printing room of the Book Graphic Arts Department”.

W oficynie u profesora Chomicza, „Gazeta Krakowska”, nr 15, rok XVII, 19 stycznia 1965, s. 3.