Agi Morawska

In the summer of 2001, Agnieszka (Agi) Morawska, an MBA graduate, left behind the small design studio she ran with a partner at home in Poland in order to further her design education at Portfolio Center. After finishing here, she found herself at Pentagram in New York, working on Woody Pirtle’s team and freelancing for Michael Gericke’s. A year and a half after that, she accepted her current position as a senior designer at Landor Associates, and also began collaborating on selected projects with a couple of her fellow PC alums who now constitute Lucha Design.

She was recently honored to have her illustration “Life, Death, Destiny & Chickens” included with the likes of Jody Barton and Gary Baseman in If You Could, an annual publication set up by designers Will Hudson and Alex Bec. Their objective is to showcase the best in design and illustration from both established and up-and-coming artists on the theme, If you could do anything tomorrow, what would it be?

It all began last year as an A5 print pack featuring 21 internationally renowned illustrators, responding to the question. The responses were then printed in two color on 350gsm stock, all beautifully housed in a hand stamped, shrink-wrapped box.

This year, they received over 350 submissions, with the final selection of 112 artists being featured in a perfect-bound book. The book launch, held at the Exposure Gallery, in the heart of London, attracted quite a crowd, as you can see for yourself on Agi's website.

As before, all the submissions were showcased—the ones that made it to the book as A3 prints and all the remaining ones in the smaller format. The book is available at www.ifyoucould.co.uk. Alas, A3 prints of the artwork were sold at the website and the gallery only through the month of July.

Agi, who claims she really can’t draw, based her illustration on the many conversations she had with family members she visited in Poland last Christmas. She sums up her piece, “It’s about living in the city and longing for my roots. On trying to define the goal I really want to achieve.”

The form came from the Polish folk art she’s loved since she was a child. In Poland there is a tradition of cutting paper doilies, most commonly either symmetrical geometric patterns, or symmetrical scenes. Growing up, she enjoyed creating these with her mom and grandmother. A tree is a common motif, and so are the roosters. (Notice, her roosters are listening to iPods.)

Congratulations to Agi on this wonderful accomplishment.