Profession: Industrial designer

Design office exhibition Studio Ganszyniec at the Museum in Tarnowskie Góry 17.10.2025-1.03.2026

After Poland's accession to the European Union, 1 could see a peculiar increase in interest in design, which entered the general discussion not only on the basis of the activities of the owners of production companies, but besides as an interesting subject of customers of commercial networks racing to offer Poles goods and services flooding the marketplace on an unknown scale.

Systemic changes, carried out in Poland after 1989, restored the professional position of industrial designers, who seldom found employment in the backward economy of the Polish People's Republic of Poland, generating products that typically importantly subsided the quality of goods released into the planet markets by Western factories. In 2011, educator and manager Krzysztof Meisner, who participated in creating iconic – from today's position – products of the period of socialism (the photographers Druh and Alfa, the scooter Wasa, the Beskid car), explained the deficiency of request for designers to exercise Lenin's doctrine, according to which the manufacture of the countries of folk democracy was to save costs resulting from the implementation of fresh solutions, illegally copying existing solutions of capitalists – which would contribute to weakening their economical advantage.

The situation changed with the fall of the PRL. Rescued from bankruptcy and re-established companies had to guarantee the competitiveness of products, and this resulted in expanding attention to their aesthetics and performance. Especially after Poland's accession to the European Union, 1 could see a peculiar increase in interest in design, which entered the general discourse not only on the basis of the activities of the owners of production companies, but besides as an interesting subject of customers of commercial networks racing to offer Poles goods and services flooding the marketplace on an unknown scale. The profession of "industrial designer" began to be attractive to young people going to colleges to the best European universities educating the industry. A akin educational profile (a stipend at a abroad university from Erasmus, an internship in the western plan office, a continuation of survey abroad) connected 3 of the 3 connected in 2009 with Warsaw designers: Maja Ganszyniec, Krystian Kowalski and Paweł Jasiewicz, as well as Marcin Krygier, who supported this squad of graphic designers, who decided to offer national clientele advanced quality plan services, setting up the company "Compot" (the name was an allusion to combine many different components in a coherent whole).

Surprisingly, this squad was invited to participate in the IKEA PS project, in which more than 20 designers from all over the planet received the task of inventing different furniture for modern “nomads” (people moving from place to place for commercial purposes) renting tiny apartments in large cities. The consequence of the work “Compot” was a secretary (a light desk with a shelf, on advanced thin legs, available in white or orange colours) implemented for production in a short IKEA series in 2014. Although the collective already ceased to be and each of its members acted on its own account, the cooperation of the Polish “Compot” with the Scandinavian furniture giant was presented by the national media as a kind of breakthrough in the plan industry.

For Mai Ganszyniec it was the beginning of a permanent professional relation with a Swedish company. The designer from Tarnowskie Gór founded Studio Ganszyniec in 2013 in Warsaw, which until present is implementing projects in cooperation with leading planet brands producing everyday objects. Since mid-October 2025, selected achievements of this studio, considered to be 1 of the best plan offices in Poland, can be seen at the exhibition in the Museum in Tarnowskie Góry, entitled “Maja Ganszyniec. Designing everyday life’. Presented in tiny halls with cradle vaults, objects let to discern in the contemporary tendencies of the planet design. Undoubtedly, it is not easy for users of everyday household appliances to offer solutions which, in their form, confirm that industrial designers have not yet said the last word, and despite the excess of products offered on the market, there is inactive a chance to invent things that fill a gap in the needs of modern customers. This is 1 of the basic problems that Warsaw studio struggles with all day. Maja Ganszyniec is simply a proponent of liable design. She does not want to make further gadgets, which are no different from the things already available in sales, and although she constantly emphasizes that she "does not want to save the world", she manages to make objects with amazing functionality adapted to the real needs of demanding users of modern times. On the Tarno Góra exhibition, you can see a plate with a specially elevated second edge, which was created for busy young people eating on sofas, while the designer himself amazed that this dish proved highly useful to her grandmother, erstwhile she was no longer able to usage a plate of classical form in the last phase of her life. Searching for a quiet space to work in the museum, located straight at the Tarnowskie Góra marketplace Square, Mellow Work chair, with a advanced sound barrier, a minitable for laptop setting and another trifles and soft cushions. This is simply a part of furniture large adequate to let you to change your sitting position – which is essential if you want to keep a healthy spine. The NORMO rotary office chair, whose uniqueness consists in the usage of completely biodegradable materials, as well as the elimination of glues, which are frequently the underlying origin of respiratory poultry and migraine diseases, was besides presented there.

Among another things, there is uniqueness of Ganszyniec's projects, that her studio placed a advanced standard of plan ethics. Therefore, its customers receive honest information about the materials from which the product is made, its environmental impact, its durability and durability. In addition to his love of natural natural materials, specified as wood and ceramics, the designer who has been associated with Warsaw for years puts nipponese doctrine first wabi sabi, teaching respect for old or even destroyed items and requiring repair. This was peculiarly highlighted in the task implemented jointly with Ceramika Paradyż. Ganszyniec's friend is Zuzanna Fruba, an interior architect who, together with her parent Hanna Faryna-Paszkiewicz, led a run in Warsaw years ago to defend the alleged corsetists – produced in Opoczno level and wall tiles, popular in the 1930s as a cladding in stairways and bathrooms of the capital apartments. Under the influence of friend Maja she besides loved these circumstantial ceramic claddings and designed for Paradyz their modern varieties, which besides work perfectly as a complement to historical defects.

Philosophy wabi sabi was besides the starting point for the creation of UME sofas and armchairs, with the fabric slanted around buckets of lumps, following the pattern of tabs in nipponese robes. Almost all subject of Ganszyniec Studio is connected with a communicative of deeper pronunciation. Drum coffee table, for example, has a plaited shelf under the counter, which behaves akin to the drum membrane and can even be utilized as a musical instrument with a small imagination. Additionally, its construction uses wood bending technique, cultivated since the late 19th century in the workshops in Jasienica, active today. This table in 2025 received the prestigious MUST HAVE award, awarded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Although Tarnogórzanka openly admits that her profession is more passion than a profession providing decent maintenance, her actions are highly crucial for Polish culture, not only due to the fact that they consist in creating an aesthetic material heritage, but besides due to the function of Ganszyniec projects in maintaining the tradition of home craftsmanship. On the 1 hand, it should be regretted that the exhibition presenting the achievements of this designer to date has been designed far from the leading industrial plan centres, but on the another hand, it may be glad that valuable museum expositions are besides generated in tiny museums with a limited budget.