Kto kogo zjada
English title: Who eats whom
Publisher: Znak
Kraków, 2010
ISBN: 978-83-240-1344-9
Dimensions: 20,5 × 29 cm
Paperback 64 p.
“Kto kogo zjada” is a simple and funny book that presents the idea of food chain. Starting from plants, to predators, and the animals feeding on dead organisms. We didn’t want to include humans in the chain, so the biggest predators of the book mercifully die of old age.
We designed this book just after graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. It was supposed to be a portfolio project, only a part of a showcase of books that we could later present to potential publishers. We didn’t know if anyone would ever publish any of those projects, but we hoped at least to get a commission for something else.
Among all of the books that we created for this purpose only “Kto kogo zjada” got finally published. Our main publisher (Wydawnictwo Dwie Siostry) was not interested, but Znak* kinda was. Unfortunately, they didn’t want to put any money in it. We were desperate to push more books to the market, so we decided to finance the print. Back then we were earning a decent salary by designing and coding Flash-based websites so we could afford this kind of investment. We didn’t print a big run – just 1500 copies – but it was enough to give this title a chance. The book sold and we got our money back plus royalty payment. After the first edition sold out, the next print was payed by Znak. In 2018 we moved rights to “Kto kogo zjada” along with our other books to Dwie Siostry.
The original edition of this book didn’t use any fonts. We handwrote all of the side notes and the red letters were made from old Letraset letters. Eventually side notes were replaced by our font Mr Orange and the red ones served as a base for one of our most popular fonts – Mr Black.
* Read more about our cooperation with Znak in the description of “Tu jesteśmy”.
A lot of tiny lines
“Zjedz to sam” is our only published book for which the idea for drawing style came before the topic. Usually we think about the content of the book first and then we choose appropriate measures to tell the story. This was one single time when we just wanted to shape animals out of thin, black, and dense lines.
We think the main reason behind this way of thinking about a book was out of our lack of experience and bad habits obtained during studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. Today, the form is a secondary issue for us. It still has to be interesting and attractive, but it must serve the story or information we want to deliver.
Foreign editions
Chinese Simplified, Shei chi chei, Beijing Yuanliu Classic Culture Ltd., 2017, ISBN: 978-7-221-13551-3
Korean, 누가 누구를 먹나, Borim Press, 2012, ISBN: 978-89-433-0897-1
French, Croque !, Rue du Monde, 2010, ISBN: 978-2-35504-134-1
Spanish, ¿Quién Come a Quién?, Libros del Zorro Rojo, 2010, ISBN: 978-84-92412-71-6
You can find a Google Sheet with a list of all our foreign editions here.
