Nieodległa.pl

On 11 November 1918, after more than a hundred years, Poland regained its status as a sovereign country.

Towarzystwo Krajoznawcze Krajobraz – a non-government organisation promoting local tourism – found a unique way to celebrate this fact and asked me to help with the website and illustrations.

Year: 2018

Developer: Piotr Pluta

Website: www.nieodlegla.pl

A significant name of the project

Together with the Instagram community, the organisers developed a list of 100 “local challenges” and invited others to discover unusual tourist attractions in Poland. The name of the project – Polska Nieodległa – is a word game that fully reflects the idea. Nieodległa in Polish means Not far away, Niepodległa means Independent. Isn’t it brilliant?

“I hugged the oldest tree in Poland”

It’s hard to translate challenges’ titles, so you’ll have to believe that they were smart and funny. Sometimes they were referring to Polish literature, history, culinary tradition or sayings, sometimes to funny names of Polish cities. Sometimes they were just wacky. To name a few: “Go to the hell” (Apparently there are a few towns in Poland called Hell), “Reach the lowest point in Tatra mountains”, “Swim through the shortest river”, “Circle around your town” or “Kiss someone on the lake Kissing” (yes, there is one named Kissing). After completing the challenge, people were supposed to take a selfie on the spot and post it on Instagram with a hashtag #nieodlegla. The whole initiative was a great success and lots of fun. I even took part myself and “hugged the oldest tree in Poland”.

Goals

The goal of the project was to explain the idea, display the “challenges” and show how to participate step-by-step. The website is a one-pager presenting “challenges” that the user can browse in two ways. For people who look for ideas or their next local trip, we developed a simple list. For those who want to see what is available nearby their location, we proposed a map view.

No more martyrology, please

The style of illustrations is intentionally a reversal of the prevailing serious and martyrological look (always in the colours of the Polish flag – white-and-red) of typical event or initiative celebrating the 100th anniversary of Polish independence. The website is colourful, bright and funny, which not only makes it stand out but also reflects the cheerful mood of the whole idea.