Franz Kafka očima studentů Fakulty designu a umění Ladislava Sutnara
The book “Franz Kafka Through the Eyes of Students of the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art” is the result of a joint project between the West Bohemian Gallery in Pilsen and the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art. Both the publication and the preceding student exhibition of the same name were created as a direct response to Marie Rakušanová’s exhibition project “Through the Eyes of Franz Kafka”.
The collection of eight student works from the Comics and Illustration for Children studio captures reflections on specific moments or phenomena that influenced Franz Kafka’s life, viewed from a century’s distance by his peers – today’s students. Six of them focus on paraphrasing individual aspects that were also present in the exhibition. The opening and closing stories leave the exhibition behind, conceptually framing the whole through birth and the present day.
The first booklet is dedicated to Kafka’s Letter to His Father, which themes the family environment and the parent-child relationship as one of the fundamental shaping moments of personality. The author of the final comic ponders how Franz Kafka would perceive contemporary Prague and the public perception of his own persona, which has partly become a piece of tourist commercialism. Each comic is introduced by a brief commentary from its author.
The publication presents students’ creative responses to both the literary and exhibition interpretations of Kafka’s work, demonstrating the potential of comics as a medium for contemporary visual reflection on literature. At the same time, it documents the pedagogical collaboration between the gallery and the faculty, and its transformation from an exhibition project into an independent book.
Published: 2025, Západočeská galerie v Plzni
Tažní ptáci
The publication “Migrant Birds” (Tažní ptáci) was initiated by illustrator, educator, and studio head Renáta Fučíková, who also authored the project’s concept. Through the stories of more than sixty personalities connected to the Czech environment, the book opens up the topic of migration and traces its form in specific human destinies.
A fundamental part of the project is the involvement of students from the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, who created original portraits of the individual figures. The publication is structured around the principle of a double-page spread combining text and visual interpretation, with the illustrations representing an equal layer of the narrative.
The textual part of the publication was prepared by Renáta Fučíková alongside writer and journalist Markéta Pilátová. The collaboration merges historical, literary, and artistic perspectives, placing the individual stories into a broader context.
The chapters thematically map various reasons for relocation – faith, persecution, professional opportunities, the desire to explore, and the search for freedom or safety – creating a framework for the individual stories.
“Migrant Birds” presents migration both as an individual experience and as a cultural process that shapes society over the long term. The publication serves as a reminder that the grand history of migration is always composed of specific human journeys.
Published: 2025, Euromedia Group
HIKOBAE – 15 VIEWS BEYOND IOGI
The publication HIKOBAE is a loose sequel to the internationally acclaimed comic collection IOGI. The book presents fifteen new stories from everyday life in Japan, oscillating on the borderline between sociological study, personal testimony, and visual poem.
The project is based on scripts by the Czech-French poet and journalist Jean-Gaspard Páleníček, drawing on his authentic experiences and encounters with people in Japan. The visual form was brought to life by fifteen authors from among the students and alumni of the Media Illustration studio, led by Václav Šlajch. Each author brought a distinct artistic style to the book, creating a diverse, mosaic-like view of lesser-known locations across the archipelago – from the island of Hokkaido and the mountain peaks of Gunma Prefecture to the seacoast of Shikoku.
The creation of the book was supported in 2024 by an international project under the Mobility III programme of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, which enabled the creative team to undertake a three-week study trip directly to Japan. There, the creators absorbed the local environment, participated in art workshops, and gathered inspiration for the final visual interpretation of both traditional crafts and modern life.
The book has been published in Czech, English, and Japanese editions, accompanying an extensive tour of Japan by the authors, which included a presentation at the World Expo 2025 in Osaka.
Published: 2024, K-A-V-K-A in cooperation with the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art
Czech Heroines
The project "Czech Heroines" was created from the initiative of Renáta Fučíková, M.F.A. Under her guidance over the course of three semesters, students at the Didactic Illustration Studio illustrated more than one hundred portraits of important female personalities from Czech history and present. The project includes the publication of the book "Heroines" and related exhibition activity with global dimensions.
The book "Heroines" was published by Euromedia in 2020 and won the national Golden Ribbon Award in 2021. It was inspired by the 100th anniversary of the enactment of equal suffrage for Czechoslovak women in 1920. It is a joint project of the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, Czech Centres and Prague International Radio. The publication has had a total of nine reprints, and 20,000 copies have been printed to date. A "Czech Heroines" exhibition was also created, consisting of 50 portraits accompanied by brief biographies. The exhibition has been translated into 18 languages. Since 2020, it has been presented at more than 60 exhibitions around the world – in Israel, Luxembourg, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland, Georgia, France, Germany, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Greece, Portugal, Kosovo, Slovakia, Ukraine, Egypt, the USA, South Korea, Hong Kong, Pakistan and Nigeria.
The project began as original student research, in which the illustrators explored feminine themes such as health and mental or physical illness, but also issues of appearance.
International social significance: thanks to the exhibitions, the publication has inspired numerous books around the world. Six similar books have been written in different countries, for example in Nigeria (Czech and Nigerian Heroines) and Pakistan (Czech and Pakistani Heroines - with portraits of Pakistani heroines under the direction of Professor and Vice-Chancellor of the National College of Arts, Murtaza Jafri).
Published: 2020, Euromedia Group
iogi
IOGI is a comic book, which is the result of the creative activity and research of artists from FDA under the direction of Václav Šlajch. The content and final form of the publication is the result of the artistic rendering of the traditional Japanese style of drawing by Czech artists, who have mastered it to the extent that they were able to succeed in the competition among local Japanese illustrators. The book won the prestigious Japan International Manga Award in 2021, making it the first Czech book awarded in this competition. The current Japanese Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Hideo Suzuki, presented the award to the authors in person in May 2022 at FDA in Pilsen. The book was presented at four exhibitions in Japan and five exhibitions in the Czech Republic. In 2023, the book was the winner of the Muriel Award in the Best Screenplay category.
The book contains eleven illustrated comic stories about the everyday life of people in Japan in the residential area of Suginami around IOGI train station on the outskirts of Tokyo. The book avoids the common stereotypes and typical images Europeans have of Japanese life. It contributes to the positive formation of national and cultural identity. It aims to offer an unbiased view of Japan, invites mutual understanding of cultures and creates true images of life beyond the borders of the Czech Republic.
The book is supported by sociological research. Japanese sociologist Naoko Takeda of Waseda University in Tokyo provided advice for the proposals.
The book's preface was written by Jean-Gaspard Páleníček and the author of the afterword is Pavel Kořínek, a prominent historian and researcher at the Institute for Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
Published: 2021, Západočeská univerzita v Plzni
Catalog Design Progress
Long before the advent of the Internet, information in analog form needed to be organized in a way that was readable and accessible. One of the designers who revolutionized the presentation of printed information was the modernist pioneer Ladislav Sutnar (1897-1976). In 1950, Sutnar, together with architect K. Lönberg-Holm, published Catalog Design Progress, a guide to modernizing printed design through typographic simplicity, compositional inventiveness, and navigational aids that signal the logical flow of information. This carefully crafted facsimile of the original book illustrates and embodies Sutnar’s ideas and clearly demonstrates their enduring influence on graphic design.
Authors: Ladislav Sutnar, K. Lönberg-Holm, Steven Heller
Published: 2022, MIT Press
 |
Heller S., Konárková M.: Ladislav Sutnar - Inspiration For Children. Plzeň, Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, 2016, 978-80-261-0549-7. |
 |
Mergl J., Nečas D.: Ladislav Sutnar - Return. Plzeň, Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, 2015, 978-80-261-0564-0. |
 |
Vlček T.: Ladislav Sutnar - Venuses. Plzeň, Gallery of the City of Pilsen, 2015, 978-80-87289-33-4. |
 |
Beránek J.: Specific LandArt: Studio of Professor Jiří Beránek. Plzeň, Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, 2015, 978-80-261-0808-5. |
 |
Team of Authors: Entwining - From Land to Land. Plzeň, Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, 2020, 978-80-261-0927-3; German and English edition |
 |
Plíhalová K., Čekanová M.: ROLL OUT THE BARRELS! Post Bellum, o. p. s., 2020, 978-80-907404-5-7. |
 |
Team of Authors: Jiří Barta - Waiting for Golem. Plzeň, Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, Sutnar Books Edition, 2020, 978-80-261-0945-7 |
 |
Fišerová, K.: Ladislav Sutnar Shapes II. Plzeň, Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, 2018, 978-80-261-0816-0. |
 |
Petříček, R.: Introduction to Plastic Anatomy. Plzeň, Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, 2018, 978-80-261-0780-4. |
 |
Fučíková, R.: Pilseñ. Plzeň, Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, 2018. |
 |
Fišerová, K.: Ladislav Sutnar Shapes. Plzeň, Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, 2018, 978-80-261-0737-8. |
 |
Zdeněk Fránek - Interview with curator Jan Van Woensel. Plzeň, Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, 2020. |
 |
CZECHIMAGE. Praha, Czech Centres, 2017. |
 |
Pearlstein P., Van Woensel J.: Telephone Calls. Plzeň, Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, Sutnar Books Edition, 2020, 978-80-261-0962-4 |
|
Sutnar, L.: Transport - Next Half Century, Plzeň, Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, 2019, 978-80261-0908-2 |