Dawid Błaszczyk, Tomasz Czechowicz, Maciej Janus, Marian Misiak

Begründung der Jury

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Poland /// Polen
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The book project that started as a kickstarter campaign offers multiple points of views on one subject/object – the World’s Longest Produced Electric Train. A complete tour of a subject, gathering an impressive diverse visual culture, mixing official as well as unofficial (pop) cultural histories and objects together. The four-year-long research – with radical passion – was led by the designers who are also the editors of the publication.

In more than 500 pages their research unveils the untold history about brutal design, visual expressions, and gives a glance into the community of passionate train lovers. It´s a richly illustrated story about the train model EN57. A model that is quite singular because of its length. EN57 – the so-called world’s longest electric train – was manufactured in the polish city of Wrocław in 1962 and is still in use today. This extraordinary vehicle had a big creative impact. An influence that was also transferred to the designers of the book and manifested itself in a journey through Poland. They met a variety of train afficionados whom they portrayed in all their diversity. Among them people tattooed with train motifs, artists, graffiti writers, train drivers, train spotters, model makers.

The abundance of interviews, found objects, archive material, absurdities and background information come together in a physical object that, thanks to the choice of material and despite its size, is very light and pleasant to handle. The typeface Tor Grotesk (Threedotstype) used as a homage to the unique train scene is the icing on the cake in the graphic language of the volume. Developed by one of the books creatives the font is a revival of the lettering used on the train EN57.