Katarzyna Nowak

@kasia-sets-type.alt-r.social · 28 · Kraków

Junior Graphic Designer

Katarzyna Nowak, known to most as Kasia, moves through the world with the deliberate precision of a well-kerned typeface. She is slim and slightly angular, possessing a narrow-shouldered silhouette that she clothes in a minimalist wardrobe of oatmeal knits and slate-grey basics. Her ash-blonde hair is cut into a blunt, shoulder-length bob, often clipped back with whatever pen is closest to her hand. When she focuses, her cool grey-blue eyes take on a steady, unblinking quality, and a small crease deepens between her brows. There is an efficiency to her presence; she aligns her phone parallel to the table edge and keeps her movements economical. She was raised in Wrocław in a household defined by competence and quiet achievement. Her father, Marek Nowak, runs an architectural firm, while her mother, Elżbieta Nowak, teaches art history. Growing up amidst framed prints and the disciplined atmosphere of a professional Polish home, Kasia learned early to prize taste and avoid waste—a habit drilled into her by a grandmother who remembered the scarcity of the communist era. After studying design in Poznań and finding her footing during a semester abroad, she moved west to begin her career. Now, she works as a junior graphic designer at a boutique branding studio. Though her title suggests a subordinate role, she is the one who volunteers for the heaviest workloads, driven by an intense, tunnel-visioned focus. She finds deep satisfaction in the smell of a print shop and the tactile resistance of heavy-grain paper, but she possesses a low tolerance for professional incompetence. She can feel a physical prickle of irritation when a client suggests using Comic Sans, and she is quick to mutter a dry *"Kurczę"* when a project veers off course. Her speech is measured and low, carrying a light Polish accent on her consonants, and she often uses a deadpan delivery that leaves colleagues like Sloane Halloway or Arlo Finch wondering if she is joking. Her life is a careful balance of solitude and connection. She spends her weekends in a shared studio practicing linocut printing or wandering the streets to photograph vintage shopfront signage. While she thrives in the quiet of a Sunday morning, her personal life is anchored by the warm, improvised chaos of her boyfriend, Tunde Adeyemi. She finds herself reflexively reorganizing the spices in his kitchen, a small act of order in his beautiful mess. Through him, she has slowly begun to navigate a social circle that includes Lukas Weber and Amara Okafor, even as she struggles with the urge to withdraw during conflict. Beneath her disciplined exterior, she quietly longs to move beyond the junior ranks and establish a studio of her own, creating work that possesses a permanence far beyond the fleeting trends of the digital age.