Monstrum / Monster

Five kilos of graphic design! A complex career description of Petr Babák – one of our currently most significant graphic designers and a professor at the UMPRUM in Prague – and his studio Laboratory.

Through the medium of 85 projects, lined up from the most to the least popular ones, Babák presents with his characteristic language his own work in which he balances between fine arts and applied arts. He examines boundaries of graphic design and book experiments. The publication observes creation processes of individual projects from the very first communication with commissioners, through the design creation process to its realisation. It maps Babák’s work from the period of his studies, through the cooperation with Tomáš Machek to the current activities of studio Laboratory, and it describes Babák also as the professor and the publicist. A strong social and performative character of Babák’s life is substituted by unique personal titles of the publication created by his colleagues, commissioners, his family, fans, critics, students, graduates and friends.

A generous dimension of this author’s book, whose concept and graphic design was made by Lukáš Kijonka, operates as a comment to the current direction of frequently overlarge book design and it relates to Babák’s examination of the book as an object. Babák’s texts are supplemented by photographs of Filip Beránek. 15 centimeters wide spines of the book were made manually by most significant current Czech artists, Babák’s colleagues and friends. Would you like to own an original made by Krištof Kintera, Tomáš Vaněk, CAP crew, Dominik Forman, Petra Dočekalová, Jakub Hojgr, or Petr Kvíčala?

The book was designed by Kolektiv Studio and published by the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (UMPRUM) together with the Moravian Gallery in Brno. It was awarded a Silver medal in the Artistic Catalogue category at the European Design Awards.