Bright, bold wood-block prints from Polish character designer Roman Klonek

Polish illustrator Roman Klonek must have permanently inky fingers. For almost 10 years he’s been generating an enormous body of wood-block posters and prints that are impeccably precise for a medium so prone to human error. Roman’s works take inspiration from eastern European graphic art and Japanese character design, fusing the two to create vast numbers of anthropomorphic oddities rendered in washed-out tones. His characters are magnificent to behold, mythical in their appearance like ancient beasts, yet inherently benign and friendly.

Quite apart from his affinity for creature creation, Roman is a master of traditional print techniques, wielding a gouge with expert precision and printing with the same careful consideration. The results are wonderfully eye-catching and make a serious case for embracing this slow but satisfying manual process over its digital counterpart.