IZAIZA. Creativity between graphic design and art
Zawadzkie is a rural spot in Powiat Strzelecki (formerly “Kreis Groß Strehlitz”). From 1936 to 1945, it was known as Andreashütte, and from the partition of Upper Silesia to the end of the Second World War, it lay on the outermost edge of the German Reich. Today, the town has fewer than 10,000 inhabitants. However, during the heyday of the iron and steel industry in Upper Silesia in the 19th century, it played a role as an industrial centre. A steelworks remained in operation in Zawadzkie even during the 20th century. Izabela Krzyscik’s mother worked as a technical drawer and her maternal grandmother was as a crane operator. At home, the family often spoke German, for example when Izabela and her sister, who was one-and-a-half years younger, weren’t supposed to understand what was being said. Yes, her grandmother was born here in 1929 and regarded herself as German. When Zawadzkie, along with the rest of Silesia, was assigned to Poland in 1945 according to the agreement reached at the Potsdam Conference, Izabela’s great grandmother would have liked to have emigrated to Germany. However, as a single mother to five children, she decided not to risk the move and to remain in the region, which was now Polish. Izabela Krzyscik’s grandparents on her mother’s side also remained in Poland as adults, but by no means identified with the Soviet-influenced socialism that took hold there. Her grandfather expressed such critical opinions that he was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment as a political prisoner in the notorious Wronki prison. Although he was pardoned after eight years, there was now no question that the Krzyscik family would be allowed to leave the country.
On 22/12/1987, Izabela, who had just turned twelve, did leave Poland, however, together with her mother and sister, and headed for Hamburg. Her father had already moved there a year previously. Officially, he had travelled there for a two-week visit, but in line with a pre-agreed plan, he never returned. Now, finally, the rest of the family were due to follow. In order to leave Poland, Mrs. Krzyscik and her daughters, aged ten and twelve, used a small transport company, which normally delivered packages, but which sometimes also took passengers across the country’s borders by car. There wasn’t much space for luggage, so Izabela’s mother had wooden boxes made, which she filled to the brim with the family’s belongings and arranged to be transported to Hamburg by train. Izabela still has very clear memories of the border with the GDR: “Everything looked grey, sad, creepy. They had German Shepherds and men in uniform, who searched our car.” However, she remembers the start of their new life in Germany in a much more positive light: “I had this fantasy that in Germany, there would be sweets growing on the trees. That turned out not to be true, but even so, I liked Hamburg from the start. There were just so many good things.” She also says that as a child, she loved the smell of the shampoos and washing powder that her aunt brought over from Germany – the aunt with whom her father initially lived after he arrived. When Izabela arrived in Hamburg with her mother and sister, her father was already able to welcome them in his own two-room flat in Hamburg-Bahrenfeld.
Her mother soon found a job as an administrator in Altona hospital. Later, she worked for the city’s police force, where she remained until she retired. The fact that she already spoke good German was certainly a big help. Izabela quickly learned the language, at least through listening: “I spent six months in a kind of integration class,” she explains. “And for me, a Polish country bumpkin, it was really exciting, because suddenly, I was learning together with kids from all over the world – from Turkey, Indonesia and Afghanistan.” Even if she by no means remembers her childhood in Zawadzkie as an unhappy one, she didn’t feel homesick. “It was probably my age,” she says. “And all the new impressions and possibilities. I simply didn’t look back.” She did well at school, and could easily have taken her “Abitur” (A-Level) school leaving exams. However, the prospect of already being able to earn her own money at 16 was much more tempting. One reason was her wish to become independent as soon as possible, and she was already looking forward to having her own flat. Her parents supported her idea. Why study for the Abitur if you could make something of yourself in Germany in a faster, more reliable way? Since Izabela Krzyscik had been good at chemistry, maths and physics in school, she applied to train as a chemical technician at Beiersdorf. The global consumer goods group, which was based in Hamburg, had a good reputation. She completed the training and got a solid job – and soon got bored with the work at the Nivea production plant. She also never got the feeling that she fitted into the company. While her colleagues, most of whom were older than she was, dreamt of having a house, a car and paid holidays, and of starting a family, at that time, Izabela couldn’t really relate to any of their goals. “I felt like an alien in my team,” she says. “It wasn’t just because I was the only woman, but also because compared to the others, I was an odd bird.”
It was in Hamburg that Izabela discovered her love of electronic music. In her free time, she loved going to techno parties, and it was during a night of wild dancing that she met a young woman with whom she quickly became friends. This friend was studying graphic design, and what she had to say about it sounded simply too tempting. Izabela joined her friend for a day at the university and her classes there, and quickly realised that this was what she wanted to do. She had already enjoyed drawing as a child. She liked all sorts of patterns, best of all in black-and-white. Now, she wanted to learn how to do it properly. She had saved up enough money to enable her to resign from her job at Beiersdorf and start studying graphic design. During the semester holidays, she was able to go back to her old job on a temporary basis. “That was absolutely the right decision,” she says. “It felt good from the start, and I never regretted it right through until the final exams.” After completing her studies, she was immediately offered fixed employment with an agency. Overall, Izabela Krzyscik spent five years working for various different advertising agencies, including Publicis and Scholz & Friends.
However, she soon came to feel out of place in the everyday working environment at the classic big agencies, both in terms of content and artistically. Designers were not encouraged to develop their own signature style, and orders for corporate designs by large businesses often ended in a mediocre compromise. She took a while to forge a plan, but when she did, things moved swiftly. At 33, she decided to go freelance. She wrote a business plan, was given a start-up grant, and was gradually able to build up a customer base. It helped initially that she was occasionally also taken on as a freelancer by her former employer. The creative aspect of her freelance activity came more easily to her than the business side of her work. Customer acquisition, bookkeeping and negotiating fees all involved a painstaking learning process. “Creative talent was something I was lucky enough to be born with, though,” she says. “My mother was not only a very accurate drawer, but also a trained seamstress.” She remembers how as a child, she used to stand in her mother’s office and admire her large-format, black-and-white technical drawings: “I was blown away by these clear, black lines against a white background. I’d love to have had one of my mother’s original drawings. Even though they were just machine parts, for me at the time, they were works of art that made a deep impression on me.” Krzyscik also cites her grandfather as a creative influence. She describes his small workshop in Zawadzkie, where he produced everyday items, from lamps and candle holders to jewellery boxes, which he engraved with different patterns. “In our home, we had a lot of hand-made objects alongside bought items,” she recalls. “These days in Hamburg, people use words like ‘sustainable’, ‘vintage’ or ‘upcycling’ to describe the re-use of objects two or three times. Back then in Poland, it was simply normal, because we were lacking a lot of things, and we were constantly having to be creative.”
Gradually, demand for Izabela Krzyscik’s work as a graphic designer, artist and illustrator began to increase. Finally, in 2010, she began to call herself IZAIZA, not least in protest against the creeping Germanisation of her name: “Someone in the administration in Hamburg advised my parents to change my name from Izabela to Isabella to avoid any complications. And my parents didn’t want any of those. Now, the ‘Z’ is back!” As a freelance graphic designer, IZAIZA takes on a wide range of different projects. For example, she was already asked to provide the designs for record covers at an early stage. She really enjoys this kind of work, which allows her to give free rein to her creative ideas. Also, music plays an important role in her life and creative process. “I pretty much always listen to music while I’m working,” she says. She has produced covers for artists such as Magit Cacoon, La Fleur and John Tejada. She also designed the posters, tickets and other marketing materials for a DJ tour. The response was so positive that she accompanied the DJs on tour and was given space to exhibit the art that she had produced in connection with the events. The tour took her to places such as the trendy Shibuya district in Tokyo.
Other projects that reflect the wide range of IAZAIZA’s work are her cooperation with a goldsmith, who designed a jewellery collection based on Izabela’s illustrations. Another example is her design for the labels used by Ylumi, a company offering high-quality nutritional supplements in collaboration with experts in traditional Chinese medicine. The minimalist yet gently playful drawings are ideally suited to these products. The same is also true of the labels for “Somersault” wines (a white and a rosé) produced by the Bergdolt-Reif & Nett winery and presenter Nova Meierhenrich. More recent projects by IZAIZA include a small-scale collaboration with Bang & Olufsen. And then there are the monsters with which the artist most recently decorated a room – the artroom 906 – in Villa Viva in the Münzviertel district of Hamburg. “I began painting these monsters during the Covid pandemic,” she explains. “For me, it became a true love.” She loves all things simple, unadorned and imperfect. However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a great deal of hard work and expertise involved in creating the logos, sketches and abstract portraits. These were initially produced in black-and-white like the technical drawings made by her mother, but since then, she has frequently produced them in colour.
Izabela Krzyscik travels to Poland about two or three times a year. She nearly always goes to Mrzeżyno. Here, in a small fishing village on the Baltic coast, her mother has a holiday cottage. However, the graphic designer, who is now firmly rooted in Hamburg, isn’t just interested in Poland as a holiday destination. She shows a keen interest in the success stories of Polish designers such as Krzysztof Łukasik, who in May 2025 was chosen by Chanel as their new Design Director for small leather items and eyewear. She also loves the work of female Polish designers such as Gosia Baczyńska and Magda Butrym. For Izabela Krzyscik, these names reflect a major development. As she puts it: “I’m delighted by this growing self-assurance among young people in Poland. It’s been a long time since they last looked to Germany with a sense of reverence and inferiority. Now, they’re following their own, multicultural path!”
Anselm Neft, August 2025
For a large archive with current and earlier work by IZAIZA, see Instagram.
The artist online: https://www.izaiza.org
