Edgar Bąk Studio
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WAW Magazine

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2010-2011

The WAW Magazine was established in 2010 in Warsaw by Mike Urbaniak (publisher and editor-in-chief) and Agnieszka Kowalska (deputy editor-in-chief) and Aga Bilska (photo editor). The magazine focuses on Warsaw cultural life, including music, theatre, cinema, visual arts, graphic design, classical music, opera, literature, dance, architecture, photography and fashion. The magazine’s look is derived from Warsaw’s rich and frequently changing architectural history over the last century. After World War I, the city gained a modernist flavor which was destroyed during the Second World War. The post-war rebuilding featured some socialist-realist influences along with widely scattered prefabricated concrete housing estates from the second half of the 20th century. Eventually, during the 1990s, a delayed burst of post-modern architecture was added to the mix. The magazine features two independent, competing and overlapping layouts. For each article, the graphic designer must make a decision as to which combination to use. A willingness to break rules and embrace inconsistency is a deeply ingrained part of the magazine, which, despite it all, remains cohesive and legible. The magazine features a custom font derived from a sign used by a Warsaw watchmaker by Jurek Gruchota, Olek Modzelewski and Rafaele Drazic.