Being a Slowhop Host is a distinction. To become one, you have to meet a lot of criteria — which is why we sadly turn down nearly 80% of applications to the platform. Even after nine years and a huge number of submissions, we can only take on around 30 places a month. Chosen with care and described as honestly as we know how.
Since the very beginning of Slowhop, back in 2018, we've honoured our Hosts with the #leisureisastateofmind artwork, placed on a sticker or another permanent fixture, so that a Host can show they've joined the Slowhop circle.
We decided that each year we'd pick a different illustrator for the job. We want to champion talented names from the Polish (though not only Polish) art scene. The artists' task is to show us their own vision of Slowhop. We don't interfere with the artistic vision — on that, we give them complete free rein.
So far, the #leisureisastateofmind artwork has been created for us by seven artists: Ola Woldańska-Płocińska, Katarzyna Bogucka "Nioska", Anna Rudak, Martyna Wójcik-Śmierska, Masha Foya, Beata Śliwińska "Barrakuz", Kuba Góra and Zuza Miśko. It's a huge joy for us that the work of such remarkable artists greets the Guests of Poland's most characterful places to stay.
An illustrator and Landscape Architect with a PhD, who combines creating illustrations with her work as an assistant professor at the Wrocław University of Env…An illustrator and Landscape Architect with a PhD, who combines creating illustrations with her work as an assistant professor at the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences. For years she has been observing rural landscapes, both scientifically and through illustration. She loves telling stories – both the short ones, captured in a single illustration, and tales running to hundreds of pages. She creates postcards, posters, covers, and books. She treats every new project as a chance to immerse herself in another world. After each such adventure, like an addict, she impatiently looks out for the next one. Drawing for Slowhop was a return to summer-holiday memories and to what matters most in them: wandering through dark forests, over green hills, and across meadows full of wildflowers. Because it's precisely in a landscape like this that you can truly slow down.
Slowhop's take:
Lila – a landscape architect and illustrator in one person? It's hard to imagine a better match for Slowhop. From the very first moment we were charmed by the deer stretched out on a deckchair, with a lily-of-the-valley drink and fields stretching to the horizon. That's us, on a perfect summer day.
Zuza Miśko is an illustrator, designer, and director of animated films, a graduate of the Łódź Film School (animation directing). She currently focuses mainly on linocut and illustration, blending European and Japanese visual traditions, inspired by nature, mythology, and science. She works in both traditional and digital techniques. From 2018 to 2022 she ran her own linocut gallery, Atelier Zuza Miśko, which now operates as a design studio. Day to day she works at the intersection of applied graphics and personal art, with a keen sensitivity to detail and message.
Slowhop's take:
This year we wanted to look for a new form of expression – one that would bring freshness while staying consistent with the rest of our stickers. Zuza won us over with her multilayered linocuts, made with remarkable precision, her references to nature, and her social engagement. When we found out she supports initiatives like "Razem dla pszczół" (Together for Bees), we knew she was one of us! Out of the two designs she proposed, we chose the one that made our hearts beat a little harder. Because how could you not love a badger playing the flute? You simply can't.
Kuba is a rising talent in the design world, with a unique sensibility and a deep understanding of visual communication. His curiosity and open mind make him an exceptionally versatile specialist, with a rich palette of skills and a natural drive to build brands with a character all their own.
Slowhop's take:
Working through Third What, Kuba played a key role in Slowhop's rebrand. He's the author of nearly 150 unique, hand-crafted badges and stamps that capture who we are. Kuba got the feel of Slowhop so spot-on that we decided to hand him the sticker project too, where he drew on the illustrations he'd created earlier. The result was fresh, one of a kind and 100% Slowhop!
A multidisciplinary visual and creative designer, a landscape architect by training. She works in graphic modification and collage. She's created projects spanning pop culture and advertising as well as non-commercial work. She was recognised by the Polish Graphic Design Awards as Best Designer of 2020 and for the best advertising poster design for Adidas Originals in 2018. In her work she goes for an individual, recognisable style, and she supports charitable causes too. She shares the secrets of her craft and trade at countless workshops and lectures.
Slowhop's take:
First we watched her collect the top prize at the PGD Awards, then we discovered that the Chopin mural in Warsaw's Powiśle district was her work, and later we made collages together at a workshop Beata was running. We marvelled at her fresh vision and inventiveness – until we decided we'd be proud to have her usher our guests into the 2023 season on Slowhop.
An illustrator from Kyiv. She studied at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute in the Faculty of Fine Arts. In her illustrations she searches for new ways to express her own "voice". She tries to convey emotion without depicting it literally. Masha has already worked with Ukrainian and international magazines, publishers and media, including The Guardian Weekly, The New York Times, The Republik, Esprit Magazine, Cincinnati Magazine, Die Zeit and Sierra Magazine.
Slowhop's take:
We won't pretend that reaching out to Masha about working together was a walk in the park for us. But when she sent us a drawing with the note "the girl on the bicycle is meant to arrange the stars from her basket across the sky," we knew this illustration was about Slowhop, but also about the hope for a slightly better tomorrow. By choosing Masha, we wanted to draw attention to the difficult situation of Ukrainian artists and help, in a small way, to open up new paths in Poland.
A graduate of the Art School in Bydgoszcz and of Graphic Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts at NCU in Toruń. She lives and works in Warsaw. She collaborates with cultural institutions, publishers and brands from Poland as well as international clients. She designs graphics, posters, covers and murals. Among others, she has drawn for WWF, McDonald's, E.Wedel, Danone, Deloitte, Lipton, Estrella Damm, China UnionPay and Wirtualna Polska, as well as for the Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy and the Landesmuseum Württemberg. She created the poster series "Health & Safety – Covid-19 Prevention," which was adopted into global campaigns by the United Nations and the WHO. Contemporary Lynx named her one of the 9 best designers in Poland – "Who said the Polish poster is dead?" On top of that, her illustrations and cover designs can be found in magazines such as Novum, Monocle, Anorak, Wysokie Obcasy, Twój Styl, Zwierciadło, Magazyn Pani, Newsweek, Gazeta Wyborcza, Przekrój, Tygodnik Powszechny and Magazyn Pismo. She's won numerous competitions, biennials and group and solo exhibitions at home and abroad, and is involved in pro-social campaigns. She took part in and represented Poland at Expo in Taiwan in 2019.
Slowhop's take:
We'd been waiting a good while to work with Martyna — with the poster she made for Label Magazine for the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus up on our wall. And this winter we were piecing together Winter Town, a puzzle by Figgle. We love those colours!
A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. She creates illustrations for magazines, music labels, packaging, and the fashion and theatre industries. She draws inspiration from the people she meets, from travel, and above all from emotions and the positive associations she weaves into her work.
Slowhop's take:
We were so taken with the collaborations Ani chose that we just had to invite her to work with us. From yoga mats for Miamiko, to notebooks for Papiery Wartościowe, to the Girl mural on the Politechnika that we can see from the Slowhop office window. And a design for NASA!
A versatile illustrator. Her work appears in the press, in children's books, in animation and in design in the broadest sense. The variety of challenges means each new piece surprises with its originality while staying true to the artist's very distinctive style. Her hallmarks are geometric, modern silhouettes and shapes, and an offbeat use of colour. Between her work with cultural institutions and commercial clients, she finds time for her own projects — home posters, painting and collage.
Slowhop's take:
Kasia's work charmed us with its humour, geometric shapes and clean lines. A little retro, a little vintage, a little communist-era Poland. We're especially fond of her riff on the posters with the slogan "Tu się czyta" ("Reading happens here").
She's from Kalisz. She studied graphic design at the University of the Arts in Poznań, where from 2010 to 2021 she was an assistant in the Packaging Design Studio. She lives and works in Poznań. She works in illustration and in designing posters, flyers, maps and packaging — and not just for children. Above all, though, she "makes" books. To date, several dozen books featuring her illustrations have been published in Poland and abroad, including more than a dozen of her own authored titles. In recent years, for the publisher Papilon, she wrote and illustrated a series of books on socially important topics: Zwierzokracja (2018), Śmieciogród (2019), Smakologia (2020) and Klimatomierz (2023). She loves guinea pigs and asparagus. In her free time, her favourite thing is doing absolutely nothing.
Slowhop's take:
We found Ola in the album The Best Polish Illustrators, before she'd even created her brilliant series of books about nature. We knew her light line and playful faces (with rosy cheeks, always) suited Slowhop and would draw Guests and Hosts into our world of imperfection, ease and carefree living.
