before October 17, 1937

Drohobych. Bruno Schulz designs a new vignette for Przegląd Podkarpacia, a newspaper that appears irregularly in Drohobych, Borysław and Truskavets.

Schulz’s design was first used in issue 70 (dated October 17, 1937) and from then until July 1939 it was the newspaper’s vignette. There was a note in the issue of Przegląd Podkarpacia in a new form, in which Henryk Springer, a responsible editor and publisher, informed the readers: “Our editorial office is constantly trying to improve the publication of our paper, taking care primarily of its external appearance. We publish the current issue of our paper in a new form by placing a new headline according to the design of a well-known artist, painter and writer, prof. Schulz, which our readers will welcome with pleasure”1.

Earlier, the newspaper’s vignette used standard fonts found in the resources of Zakłady Graficzne “A. H. Żupnik Spółka z o.o.”, where it was printed. Schulz went beyond the possibilities of the printing house. He designed a vignette that combined a drawing of an oil well and refinery with an art-deco typographic logo. The design had to be created as a free ink drawing. “[Schulz] doubled the size of the initial letter ‘p’, and thus it belonged simultaneously to the two lines of words (separated by a dash) that made up the title of the newspaper. […] But the entire composition was quite casual. The letters did not stick to the baselines, the edges were not always even, as was not the thickness of the elements. This is an indication (and proof) that the vignette of Przegląd Podkarpacia was made by Schulz as a hand drawing and then etched by the printing house on a zinc plate and as a film put into the composition (manual or linotype)”2. (sr) (transl. mw)

  • 1
    Przegląd Podkarpacia 1937, no. 70 of 17 October, p. 4.
  • 2
    [r] “Schulz typograf. Nowa winieta ‘Przeglądu Podkarpacia’”, Schulz/Forum 2015, no. 6, p. 116 – full text in the appendix.