CGD

If you are unlucky enough to have not heard about the person named Jindřich Janíček aka Lokomotiva JJ in the recent years, be sure you will definitely hear about him very soon. He graduated from the Tomas Bata University in Zlín and the Studio of Illustration at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. Janíček and his partner, the graphic designer Nikola Klímová, are the figures behind the Take Take Take graphic studio and publishing house, under which they have already published 17 titles. They established it out of their passion for high-quality graphic design of books and their fascination by the simplicity of book covers published in the past. However, Jindřich is mainly an illustrator who does not cease astonishing the Czech Grand Design jury for the Illustrator of the Year award by his continuous zeal and cooperation on various projects during the year - from the illustrations for the articles published in the Hospodářské noviny daily and his author's posters to his comic books and book publications. His peculiar morphology, characteristic of minimalist approach and mostly employing merely two colors multiplied one over another, became clearly distinctive for many due to its consistency and style. Janíček was this time nominated for, among other works, his comic supplement of the runner's magazine, B, entitled 75 Degree Fahrenheit. It is an illustrated story of the 1982 Boston Marathon. In late 2018, he moreover co-published and illustrated – perhaps for the first time in the history of the Czech Constitution – a synoptic and beautiful Illustrated Book of the Constitution of the Czech Republic. He conceived it in the same way he daily sees the world around him, which involves both positive and negative moments and accidents. At the point of writing this text, the publication is sold out already. I am curious about and looking forward the next stop of the JJ train, ceaselessly dashing at full speed.

František Kast