Interviews with Konarski and Bzowski

I am the Creative Director at Konarski Bzowski, a company specializing mainly in exhibition stand design, brand environments, product displays, and scenographic concepts. Our work is focused on creating spatial experiences for trade fairs, events, and corporate presentations, where architecture, visual communication, functionality, and brand identity need to operate as one coherent environment.

In my role, I am responsible for leading the creative department, developing design directions, supervising concepts, and coordinating the work of designers. I work closely with project managers, technical teams, and clients to make sure that each project is not only visually strong, but also functional, buildable, and aligned with the client’s business objectives.

Our studio operates at the intersection of design, architecture, scenography, and marketing. Every project requires us to think about space as a communication tool. We design places where brands can meet their audiences directly, so the work has to be attractive, memorable, and practical at the same time.

For me, design is the process of giving functionality a meaningful visual and spatial form. It is not only about making something look attractive, but about shaping function in a way that becomes clear, engaging, and emotionally understandable.

Good design should communicate an idea. It should tell a story, guide the viewer, and create a certain atmosphere or experience. In my work, especially in exhibition and scenographic design, design is a bridge between practical needs and visual narration. The space must work technically and functionally, but at the same time it has to express the character of the brand and leave a strong impression on the audience.

I see design as a balance between logic and emotion: solving a problem, organizing space, and building a visual language that makes the concept memorable.

I genuinely love my work because it allows me to move between very different visual worlds and design challenges. What I enjoy most are projects where space becomes a complete story: not just a structure, but an environment with its own atmosphere, rhythm, and narrative.

I like designing exhibition stands and scenographic spaces because every client requires a different language. For example, working for CD PROJEKT RED means entering a world strongly connected with games, storytelling, and immersive pop culture. It requires a more theatrical, emotional, and experience-driven approach, because the brand is known for creating story-rich RPG worlds such as *The Witcher* and *Cyberpunk 2077*.

On the other hand, projects for WB Group are much more technological, precise, and strategic. WB Group operates in areas such as C4ISR systems, unmanned systems, cybersecurity, communications, and defence technologies, so the design language has to communicate innovation, reliability, control, and advanced engineering.

Then there are projects such as the Nowy Styl stand for ORGATEC 2024, which are much more subtle and atmospheric. Nowy Styl is a European manufacturer of comprehensive furniture solutions for offices and public spaces, so the stand had to express comfort, workplace culture, material softness, and a refined approach to spatial experience. The project material itself shows how the concept combined a large-scale exhibition layout with detailed work on suspended elements, lighting, flooring, equipment, and visualizations.

This variety is what I value most. I enjoy projects where I can translate the identity of a brand into space, whether the result is theatrical, futuristic, technological, elegant, or calm. Each project is a new world to build.

This may sound a bit cliché, but my favorite design is usually the next one.

Every new project is a new story to discover, a new context to understand, and a new problem to solve. I find it difficult to choose one favorite work, because each project carries a different set of challenges, emotions, people, limitations, and discoveries. In that sense, projects are a little like children — it is almost impossible to choose only one.

Of course, some projects are especially important because of their scale, recognition, complexity, or personal meaning. However, what excites me most is not only the final result, but the process of entering a new world and translating it into space. Each client has a different identity, each brand requires a different language, and each exhibition stand becomes a unique environment.

That is why I would say that my favorite design is the one I have not created yet. The next project always contains the greatest potential: for learning, experimenting, improving, and telling a new story through design.

One of the first commercial projects I designed for a company was a small exhibition stand for PZU, one of the most recognizable insurance and financial brands in Poland. PZU Group is one of the largest financial institutions in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe, and its history goes back to 1803, when the first Polish insurance company was established.

It was not a large project in terms of scale, but it was very important to me because it was my first experience of designing for a real, established brand with a strong visual identity and a clear public presence. It taught me that commercial design is not only about individual creativity. It is also about understanding the client, respecting brand guidelines, working within limitations, and translating business needs into a spatial experience.

Looking back, that project was an important first step. It showed me how exhibition design combines visual communication, architecture, functionality, and brand storytelling in a very direct way.

At the moment, my favorite “materials” are digital ones: 3D graphics and generative artificial intelligence. They are not traditional materials in the physical sense, but they strongly influence the way I think, teach, and design.

Apart from my work as a Creative Director, I am also a lecturer at the university where I completed my Master’s degree. I teach 3D graphics and generative AI, and both areas are genuine passions of mine. 3D allows me to construct and test spatial ideas before they become physical environments. It gives me control over scale, light, material, atmosphere, and composition. Generative AI, on the other hand, opens new ways of searching, experimenting, prototyping, and expanding visual imagination.

I am interested in technology not as a replacement for the designer, but as an extension of the design process. It can accelerate exploration, reveal unexpected directions, and help communicate ideas more clearly. For me, the most exciting part is the dialogue between human intention and digital tools — the moment when technology helps transform an abstract concept into a visible, spatial, and emotional experience.

I feel most creative when I am surrounded by people I trust — especially my team at Konarski Bzowski, and sometimes also my wife. My best ideas usually do not appear in complete isolation. They develop through conversation, discussion, and the possibility of testing thoughts in real time.

I like to “bounce” ideas off other people. When I can say something out loud, hear a reaction, receive a question, or see a different point of view, the concept often becomes clearer and stronger. This kind of dialogue helps me move faster from a vague intuition to a more precise design direction.

For me, creativity is not only a solitary act. It is also a social process. A good conversation can reveal what is essential in an idea, what is unnecessary, and where the strongest emotional or visual potential is hidden.

I always begin with the functional layout. Before thinking about the final visual form, I need to understand how the space should work: how people will enter, move, meet, look, sit, talk, discover the brand, and interact with the environment.

In exhibition design, functionality is the foundation. A stand can be visually impressive, but if the communication flow is unclear, if the visitor path is uncomfortable, or if the business functions do not work properly, the design fails. That is why I first focus on spatial logic, circulation, visibility, meeting zones, storage, technical requirements, and the hierarchy of information.

Only after the functional structure is strong do I start building the visual language, atmosphere, materials, lighting, and narrative. For me, aesthetics should grow from function, not cover its weaknesses. A successful design is one where the visitor feels that the space is natural, clear, and memorable, even if they do not consciously notice all the decisions behind it.

The strongest emotion I feel when designing is excitement. At the beginning of a project, there is always a moment of possibility: a new brief, a new brand, a new space, and a new story to build. I enjoy the process of searching for the right direction and gradually transforming an abstract idea into a concrete spatial concept.

At the same time, design can also bring tension or frustration, especially when working with new clients who do not yet fully know my way of thinking or have not yet built trust in the process. In such situations, the challenge is not only to design the project, but also to create a productive relationship and explain why certain decisions are important.

For me, the best design process happens when there is trust between the designer and the client. A client should be involved, clear about their goals, and honest about their needs, but the designer must also be given the space to propose, interpret, and lead the creative direction. When that balance is achieved, the emotional experience of designing becomes very rewarding.

When my designs are realized, I feel pride and satisfaction. Even after many projects, there is still something almost unbelievable about seeing an idea that once existed only on a screen become a real physical space.

In the concept phase, many things may feel possible because they live in drawings, visualizations, and imagination. But when the project is actually built, when people can walk through it, touch it, use it, and experience it, the idea becomes something much more powerful. That transformation is always very rewarding.

I also feel great appreciation for the production team at Konarski Bzowski. They are the people who turn my concepts, sometimes quite ambitious or unusual, into real structures. Seeing how their technical knowledge, craftsmanship, and precision make these ideas possible gives me a strong sense of respect for the whole collaborative process. A realized project is never only the designer’s achievement — it is the result of a team that can translate imagination into reality.

For me, a design is truly successful when someone can still remember it after many months, or even years. In exhibition design, this is especially important because the audience often experiences the space only for a short time. A stand may exist physically for just a few days, but if the idea stays in someone’s memory much longer, then the design has achieved something meaningful.

Of course, a successful design must also be functional, well organized, technically feasible, and aligned with the client’s objectives. But these are the foundations. The deeper success happens when the space creates a clear impression — when people can recall its atmosphere, form, story, or emotion long after the event is over.

A memorable design does not necessarily have to be loud or spectacular. Sometimes it is remembered because it is precise, calm, elegant, or unusually coherent. What matters is that it leaves a trace in the viewer’s mind.

Judging design is not always simple, because some of the most important aspects are not immediately visible. Functionality, for example, is crucial, but it is not always something we can fully understand at first glance. Sometimes we need to experience the space, observe how people move through it, or analyze the brief to judge whether it truly works.

The first contact with a design is usually more intuitive and visual. We respond to the overall form: proportions, materials, lighting, rhythm, scale, and atmosphere. These elements create the first impression and often determine whether the design feels coherent, balanced, and intentional.

After that first visual judgment, I look deeper. I consider whether the concept is clear, whether the spatial logic supports the user experience, whether the design communicates the brand properly, and whether all elements work together rather than competing with one another. For me, a good design is one where visual impact and functional intelligence support the same idea.

I believe designers have a responsibility to make thoughtful decisions, not only visually attractive ones. In our work, this begins with constantly expanding our knowledge about materials, technologies, and production methods. My team is continuously learning how different materials behave, how they can be processed, and how they can be used more responsibly.

In exhibition design, sustainability is a particularly important challenge because many projects are temporary by nature. That is why we try to design in a way that minimizes material waste and production offcuts. We also often think modularly, creating elements that can be reused, adapted, or reconfigured for future projects, especially when we work with the same client over a longer period of time.

Another important responsibility is accessibility. A designed space should not only look good, but should also be comfortable, understandable, and easily accessible for different users. For me, responsible design means balancing aesthetics, function, production logic, environmental awareness, and human experience.

The arrival of artificial intelligence is changing design very strongly, but in a paradoxical way I believe it is making the profession more selective, not less important. Today, almost everyone can access powerful tools. However, access to a tool does not automatically mean the ability to create something valuable with it.

AI can generate images, forms, references, and variations very quickly, but it does not replace taste, judgment, experience, spatial thinking, or the ability to understand a client’s real needs. In this sense, the designer’s role is shifting. The future designer will not only be someone who can produce visuals, but someone who can ask the right questions, curate possibilities, make decisions, and transform raw output into a coherent concept.

I think the future of design will be more interdisciplinary and technologically advanced, but also more dependent on human sensitivity. The best designers will be those who can combine creativity, critical thinking, technical awareness, and the intelligent use of new tools. AI may speed up the process, but the responsibility for meaning, quality, and final direction will still belong to the designer.

In my field, exhibitions are not occasional events — they are part of the rhythm of my work. There are so many projects, trade fairs, and exhibition environments that it is sometimes difficult to point to just one “last” exhibition.

What I am most looking forward to now are the upcoming projects with brands that are very different from one another: Gamescom with CD PROJEKT, MSPO with WB Group, and ORGATEC with Nowy Styl. Each of these events represents a completely different design challenge. Gamescom is connected with gaming, storytelling, and immersive experience. MSPO requires a more technological, strategic, and precise design language. ORGATEC, on the other hand, is strongly related to workplace culture, furniture, comfort, and the future of office environments.

This variety makes thisW year very exciting for me. It will be a strong year, not because of one single exhibition, but because of the range of stories, brands, and spatial experiences that we will have the opportunity to create.

My inspiration comes from many different areas, because my work is also very interdisciplinary. I was originally shaped by pop culture, games, animation, and visual storytelling, and these influences are still important to me. They taught me how powerful atmosphere, emotion, and narrative can be when they are translated into images or spaces.

Today, I also draw a lot of inspiration from architecture, scenography, technology, materials, and light. I am interested in how people move through spaces, how they react to proportions, rhythm, scale, and texture, and how a physical environment can communicate an idea without needing too many words.

A very important source of inspiration is also dialogue. I often develop ideas through conversations with my team, with clients, and sometimes with my wife. Speaking about an idea out loud helps me understand whether it has real potential. I like this process of testing, questioning, and refining concepts together with other people.

I also use digital tools, 3D graphics, and generative AI as part of my creative process. They help me explore directions faster, look for unexpected visual solutions, and expand the range of references. However, I do not treat inspiration as copying images. For me, inspiration is more about collecting impressions, moods, structures, and ideas, and then transforming them into something precise, functional, and original.

I would not say that I have one fixed design style. My approach is based on adapting the visual and spatial language to the brand, the context, and the story that needs to be told.

In exhibition and scenographic design, a personal style can sometimes become a limitation. Each client has a different identity, audience, market position, and emotional tone. A stand for a gaming company should not speak the same language as a stand for a defence technology company or a furniture brand. Because of that, I try not to impose one recognizable aesthetic on every project. Instead, I look for the right language for each specific case.

What remains consistent in my work is not the style, but the method. I start from function, then build a clear concept, and finally develop the atmosphere, proportions, materials, lighting, and details. I am interested in spaces that communicate, guide, and stay in memory. My approach is therefore adaptive, narrative, and functional — the style changes, but the intention remains the same: to create a coherent spatial experience that feels right for the brand.

I live and work in Poland. I believe that the cultural and natural context of this country has an influence on the way I think about design, even if it is not always direct or literal.

Poland is a country with a strong sense of safety and stability in everyday life, which is important for creative work. It allows designers, studios, producers, and clients to focus on development, quality, and long-term cooperation. At the same time, Poland has a very rich natural landscape: forests, lakes, mountains, and the Baltic Sea. This diversity gives a strong sensitivity to materials, textures, light, atmosphere, and the relationship between built environments and nature.

There is also a deep historical and cultural background here. Polish design often exists between tradition and modernity, between craftsmanship and technology, between modesty and ambition. I think this creates a useful tension. It encourages us to respect heritage and values, but also to search for contemporary forms of expression.

From a practical point of view, one of the great advantages of working in Poland is the strong availability of materials and the very well-developed furniture, woodworking, and manufacturing industries. This is especially important in exhibition design, where concepts must quickly become real, buildable, and precisely produced objects. Access to skilled craftsmen, carpenters, metalworkers, and production teams gives designers a lot of freedom.

The challenge is that budgets and expectations can sometimes be very demanding, so designers need to be resourceful, efficient, and technically aware. But I see this more as a strength than a weakness. Working in Poland teaches you to combine creativity with pragmatism.

For me, working with companies is based on dialogue and cooperation. The client is a key part of a successful project, because they know their brand, their audience, their business goals, and the message they want to communicate. My role is to listen carefully, understand these needs, and then translate them into a spatial and visual experience.

I usually start by analyzing the brief, the brand identity, the functional requirements, and the context of the event or exhibition. Then I look for the right balance between what the client wants to say and how the audience should experience it. A good project is rarely created in isolation. It develops through questions, discussion, testing, feedback, and refinement.

At the same time, successful cooperation requires trust. The client should be actively involved in defining goals and giving feedback, while the designer should have the freedom to interpret, structure, and propose solutions. When both sides understand their roles, the process becomes much more effective and the final result is stronger.

My suggestion to companies is to look for a designer who knows how to listen and how to ask the right questions. A good designer should not begin only by presenting ready-made visual solutions. First, they should try to understand the company, the brand, the audience, the purpose of the project, and the real problem that needs to be solved.

In my opinion, a strong design is often the result of good answers to good questions. If the designer asks about the client’s goals, values, functional needs, communication priorities, limitations, and expectations, the final project has a much better chance of being meaningful and effective.

When selecting a designer, companies should not look only at the final images in a portfolio. They should also consider the designer’s thinking process, ability to communicate, openness to dialogue, and understanding of function. A good designer is not just someone who creates beautiful forms. It is someone who can translate a company’s needs into a clear, coherent, and memorable experience.

My design process usually begins with a careful analysis of the brief. I try to understand not only what needs to be designed, but also why it needs to exist, who it is for, what the client wants to communicate, and what practical limitations we have to respect.

The first concrete stage is almost always the functional layout. I define the main zones, visitor flow, visibility, communication hierarchy, meeting areas, storage, technical requirements, and all the elements that make the space work properly. For me, this is the foundation of the project.

After that, I move into research and concept development. I look for the right visual and spatial language for the brand, then start building the idea in 3D. The 3D model helps me test proportions, composition, scale, materials, lighting, and atmosphere. At this stage, I also consult ideas with my team and, when necessary, with production specialists, because the project must be not only attractive, but also realistic and buildable.

The next stages are visualizations, client feedback, refinement, and technical coordination. I see the process as a gradual movement from questions to structure, from structure to concept, and from concept to a real spatial experience.

I do have some designed objects at home that I appreciate, but I am probably not fully objective in this answer. The objects closest to my heart are the things created by my wife. She has a very artistic soul and creates ceramics, illustrations, and handmade pieces, so many of my favorite objects at home are connected with her work.

For me, this is also an important part of design. The most meaningful objects are not always the most famous, expensive, or iconic ones. Sometimes the strongest design value comes from authorship, emotion, craft, and the story behind the object. I like objects that feel personal, human, and imperfect in a beautiful way.

I try to divide my work into smaller parts, because it helps me stay focused and keep a fresh perspective. The first part of my day usually takes place in the office. This is where I deal mostly with consultations, management, planning, delegating tasks, reviewing projects, and supporting the design team.

The second part of my work often happens at home. I try to reserve time there for actual designing, because I believe it is important to keep this skill alive and natural. Even as a Creative Department Director, I do not want to lose direct contact with the design process itself. Designing regularly helps me stay connected to the tools, the problems, and the emotions that my team works with every day.

This division also helps me mentally. I find it difficult to stay fully concentrated on one type of task for many hours without interruption. By separating managerial work from creative work, I can approach both with more clarity and energy.

My advice to young designers is: do not become too emotionally attached to your work. This is difficult, especially at the beginning, because every project feels personal. But design is not only self-expression. It is also a process of testing, improving, changing, and sometimes removing ideas that are not strong enough.

If someone more experienced gives you advice or criticizes your project, they are criticizing the work, not you as a person. Understanding this difference is extremely important. Critique should not be treated as an attack, but as one of the fastest ways to grow. A young designer who can listen, analyze feedback, and improve the project without feeling personally hurt will develop much faster.

Of course, sensitivity is important in design, but it needs to be balanced with discipline and distance. You should care about your work, but you should also be able to question it. Sometimes the best decision is to abandon an idea you like in order to create something better.

One of the most difficult aspects of being a designer is that it can be hard to separate work from life outside of work. A project often stays in your head for the whole day. Even when you are no longer sitting in front of the computer, you may still be thinking about the layout, the form, the problem, the client’s feedback, or a better solution. Design is not always easy to switch off.

There is also pressure connected with deadlines, subjective opinions, and the need to constantly defend or explain decisions. A designer must be creative, but also patient, precise, communicative, and resistant to criticism.

At the same time, the positive aspects are much stronger for me. Design gives a great sense of satisfaction, especially when an idea becomes real and people can experience it physically. It also gives a certain kind of freedom: the freedom to create, to interpret, to search for solutions, and to move between very different worlds.

I also value the constant challenges. No two projects are exactly the same, and this keeps the profession alive. You are always learning something new — about brands, people, materials, technologies, spaces, and yourself.

My golden rule in design is: first listen, then design.

Before creating a form, choosing materials, building a visual language, or presenting solutions, a designer needs to understand the real context of the project. Listening carefully helps reveal what the client actually needs, what the audience should experience, what the space must achieve, and what problem the design should solve.

For me, design should not start from the designer’s ego. It should start from observation, dialogue, and asking the right questions. Only then can the creative process lead to something meaningful, functional, and coherent. A good project is not simply an answer to what the designer wants to express; it is an answer to what the situation requires.

For me, one of the most important qualities in a designer is commitment. Design is not the kind of work where you simply arrive, complete a routine task, and leave it behind. It requires real involvement, curiosity, and passion.

A designer needs technical skills, visual sensitivity, communication skills, and the ability to analyze problems, but without commitment these skills are not enough. Good design often requires going deeper: asking more questions, testing alternatives, improving details, and thinking about the project even when the easiest solution has already been found.

Passion is important because design demands energy. It involves criticism, revisions, pressure, and uncertainty. If there is no genuine interest in the work, it becomes very difficult to stay open, ambitious, and precise. A committed designer cares not only about making something look good, but about making it meaningful, functional, and memorable.

A magician should not reveal all his tricks. But speaking seriously, my main design environment is 3ds Max combined with V-Ray. This is where I develop most of my spatial concepts, test proportions, materials, lighting, and atmosphere, and transform ideas into visualizations.

For post-production, I usually work with a combination of Adobe Photoshop and generative AI tools. Photoshop gives me control and precision, while AI-based tools help with exploration, refinement, and sometimes with expanding the visual potential of an image or concept.

In the creative process, I often use Miro boards for research, moodboards, references, and organizing ideas. For project management and coordination, we use Asana, which helps keep tasks, deadlines, and team responsibilities clear.

However, the most important tools are not software. They are people and their experience. A strong team, good communication, production knowledge, and the ability to exchange ideas are more valuable than any single application. Digital tools are extremely important, but they only become powerful when they are used by people who understand design, technology, and the purpose of the project.

I think time management in design comes with experience. Over time, you learn when something is good enough — and this is a very important skill.

There is an interesting paradox in creative work: good can be the enemy of better, but better can also be the enemy of good. A designer can spend endless hours improving one element, but this may take time and energy away from the rest of the project. At some point, you need to recognize when a solution is strong enough to move forward.

For me, managing time means understanding priorities. Not every detail has the same weight. Some decisions define the whole project, while others only refine it. The challenge is to know where perfection is necessary and where efficiency is more valuable.

This is especially important in exhibition design, where deadlines are strict and many elements must be developed at the same time. You need to improve the project as a whole, not only polish one fragment endlessly.

It depends on many variables. Sometimes I can work on one exhibition stand for several months, and sometimes a strong concept can be developed in two days. There is no single answer, because the time required depends on the scale of the project, the complexity of the brief, the number of functions, the client’s decision-making process, technical requirements, budget, and the amount of feedback and revisions.

In exhibition design, time is also strongly connected with the event calendar. Trade fairs have strict deadlines, so sometimes the process must be very fast and efficient. In other cases, especially with larger or more strategic projects, the concept develops gradually through research, functional planning, 3D work, visualizations, technical coordination, and many rounds of refinement.

For me, the key is not only how long the design takes, but whether the process has enough time for the right decisions. Some ideas appear quickly, but need time to mature. Others require long analysis before the right direction becomes clear.

Probably the most frequently asked question is: “When will it be ready?”

Exhibition design is a field that operates under strong time pressure. Trade fairs, events, and production schedules have fixed deadlines, so time becomes one of the most important factors in the entire process. Clients, project managers, production teams, and designers all need to coordinate their work around a date that usually cannot be moved.

This question may sound simple, but behind it there is often a very complex reality. A design is not only an image or a visual concept. It includes functional planning, creative development, 3D modeling, visualizations, client feedback, technical verification, production preparation, and many decisions that must be made at the right moment.

So “when will it be ready?” is not only a question about time. It is also a question about priorities, coordination, communication, and the ability to make good decisions under pressure.

It is difficult to choose just one experience, because different moments shaped me in different ways. However, one of the most important moments in my professional life was when financial motivation stopped being the main force behind my work.

At some point, I realized that I was no longer coming to work only to earn more or to chase the next financial step. I was coming because I genuinely wanted to create, develop projects, work with my team, and see ideas become real. That shift changed a lot in my mind.

When passion becomes stronger than purely financial motivation, the quality of your decisions changes. You become more patient, more ambitious, and more emotionally connected to the work. You start thinking not only about completing a task, but about improving, learning, and building something meaningful.

For me, this was a very important professional experience because it helped me understand that design is not only a career path. It is a way of thinking and a long-term commitment.

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to work on projects for many different clients, representing very diverse industries, scales, and communication needs. Some of them include Nowy Styl, CD PROJEKT, WB Group, PZU, KGHM, Coca-Cola, Paged, PKP, DKV, Skanska, Browar Żywiec, Timocom, Prologis, Panattoni as well as projects connected with cities such as Warsaw, Poznań, and Wrocław.

What I value most is this diversity. Each client brings a different world: office furniture and workplace culture, gaming and entertainment, defence technology, public institutions, logistics, real estate, infrastructure, beverages, and city-related projects. This variety forces me to stay flexible and to avoid repeating one fixed design language.

There are, of course, many more clients and collaborators I could mention, and I apologize to those not listed here. Every project, regardless of scale or brand recognition, has contributed to my experience and helped shape the way I understand exhibition and spatial design.

I especially enjoy scenographic projects and designs where I can work with more advanced 3D solutions. These types of projects allow me to think beyond a simple structure or functional layout and to create a complete atmosphere, almost like building a world.

Scenography is interesting to me because it combines space, emotion, storytelling, lighting, materials, and movement. It gives more freedom to create an experience that is not only practical, but also memorable and immersive. In this kind of work, the designer can shape how people feel inside the space, how they discover it, and what they remember afterwards.

I also enjoy projects that require advanced 3D work because they allow me to test ideas in a very detailed way before they are built. Through 3D, I can explore scale, composition, light, reflections, textures, and spatial rhythm. It is a powerful tool for transforming imagination into something visible and convincing. For me, the most satisfying projects are those where technical precision and creative storytelling meet.

My future plans are strongly connected with the development of my creative department and with the further growth of Konarski Bzowski in the fields of events, scenography, and exhibition design.

I want to continue building a team that is not only technically strong, but also ambitious, curious, and capable of creating memorable spatial experiences. For me, the next step is to push our work further: toward more advanced concepts, more complex storytelling, stronger use of 3D and digital tools, and projects with greater international visibility.

In simple words, I want to develop my department and, together with Konarski Bzowski, conquer the world of events and scenography. Of course, this is partly said with a smile, but the ambition is real. I believe we have the knowledge, production background, creativity, and team spirit to create projects that can compete at the highest level.

I definitely work as part of a team. Even if the initial concept or visual direction may sometimes begin with one person, a successful exhibition or scenographic project is never the result of one designer working alone.

The client, project manager, production team, technical specialists, financial management, and designers all play an important role. The client brings knowledge about the brand and its goals. The project manager keeps the process organized. The production team understands how to turn ideas into real structures. Financial control helps keep the project realistic and responsible. Designers connect all these elements into a coherent spatial experience.

For me, teamwork is essential because exhibition design exists between creativity and execution. A beautiful concept is not enough if it cannot be built, managed, financed, transported, installed, and used properly. The strength of a project comes from the cooperation between many people with different skills and responsibilities.

As I mentioned earlier, some of our most important and visible projects of the year are still ahead of us. I cannot share all the details yet, but I can say that we are working on exciting exhibition and scenographic projects for very different brands and events.

I am especially looking forward to the projects connected with Gamescom, MSPO, and ORGATEC. Each of them requires a different design language and a different way of thinking: from gaming and storytelling, through defence technology, to workplace culture and furniture environments.

So my answer would be: watch for us at these fairs. The most interesting realizations are still to come.

People can contact me through Konarski Bzowski or via LinkedIn. I am always open to conversations about design, exhibitions, scenography, 3D, generative AI, and creative collaboration.

You can also reach me directly by email at piotr.duraj@konarskibzowski.pl. Do not hesitate to get in touch — I am open to being contacted on any subject connected creative work, personal growth or potential cooperation.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Daniel Konarski and Jarosław Bzowski, the founders of Konarski Bzowski. They are true enthusiasts who care for the company as if it were their own child.

What I respect deeply is that they take care of their employees and place good design, quality, and long-term value above short-term personal gain. This kind of attitude creates an environment where ambitious design can truly develop.

For me, working in a company led by people who believe in design, trust creative work, and understand the importance of a strong team is extremely valuable. Many of my achievements are connected not only with my own work, but also with the culture, trust, and support that they have built around the company.

For us, biophilic design in this project was not limited to adding plants or natural finishes. The most important decision was to create a spatial structure in which nature could be felt as scale, rhythm, softness, light, and atmosphere. The central elements of the stand were three dominant suspended forms rising above the exhibition area. In the project drawings and visualizations, these elements were described as “parasols,” but conceptually they functioned more like organic canopies or spatial trees: large, soft, protective structures that organized the stand visually and emotionally. The plan clearly shows the three main parasol elements distributed across the stand, while the technical pages define their radial, leaf-like construction.Their organic form was important because it gave the stand a recognizable emotional identity. They were not only decorative objects; they created orientation, atmosphere, and a sense of shelter. In a trade fair environment, where visitors are usually surrounded by noise, visual overload, and commercial messages, these large organic forms helped introduce a calmer and more human spatial rhythm.The biophilic principles we focused on were therefore connected with immersion rather than quotation. We were interested in the feeling of being under a canopy, in the softness of filtered light, in natural associations with shade, protection, and pause. The stand still needed to present furniture and support business meetings, but the emotional goal was to make the visitor feel that this was not just another commercial booth. It was a workplace environment imagined through the lens of comfort, nature, and wellbeing.The decisions were informed by the client’s direction, our design experience, observation of how people behave in exhibition spaces, and the functional need to create different zones within a large footprint. We wanted the natural references to support the way people moved, stopped, sat, talked, and experienced the products in context.At the same time, this project was only one stage in our exploration of biophilic design. This year, we have decided to develop the subject even further — but for that, you will have to wait for the next ORGATEC.

At Konarski Bzowski, designers use AI tools mainly as support for prototyping, exploration, and post-production. In this project, AI was not treated as an author of the design, but as an additional instrument within the creative process — a way to test atmospheres faster, expand visual references, refine images, and open new directions that could then be evaluated by the team.There is a common misunderstanding that AI “does the work” for designers. In reality, the most important principle in working with AI is “human in the loop.” The designer must remain responsible for intention, judgment, taste, context, and final decision-making. AI can produce possibilities, but it does not understand the brand, the visitor, the production constraints, or the emotional precision required by a project like the Nowy Styl Fair Stand.This balance was especially important here because the project was centered on human experience, nature, wellbeing, and emotional perception. Using advanced digital tools to explore a more organic and humanistic spatial language may seem paradoxical, but for us it was a productive tension. Technology helped us accelerate parts of the process, but the meaning of the project came from human observation and design intuition.Ultimately, AI remained a tool for expanding imagination, not replacing it. The final stand was shaped by designers, conversations, functional decisions, production knowledge, and the collective experience of the team. AI supported the process, but the human layer gave the project its direction, sensitivity, and coherence.

Nowy Styl has been our long-term partner, and this relationship was very important for the project. They know our way of thinking, and there is a strong level of trust between both sides. This trust allowed us to move beyond a conventional product showcase and discuss the stand as a broader brand experience.It is also important to say that Nowy Styl itself has a strong internal design culture. They have a large design department, they understand spatial thinking, and they are open to creative solutions. This makes them an ideal partner for this type of collaboration, because the conversation does not need to begin with explaining why design matters. Instead, we can immediately discuss how far the concept can go and what kind of experience will best represent the brand.The argument for a more emotional and contextual approach was quite natural. Nowy Styl does not create furniture as isolated objects; they create solutions for workplaces, public interiors, meeting areas, and everyday human environments. Because of that, presenting products only as separate exhibits would not fully express their value. The furniture needed to be shown in a living context, as part of a larger spatial and emotional ecosystem.The goal was not to reduce the commercial function of the stand, but to strengthen it through experience. A visitor who understands how a space feels, how it supports conversation, focus, comfort, and wellbeing, can understand the brand more deeply than through a traditional display format. In this sense, the stand served the long-term interests of Nowy Styl by building memory, trust, and emotional recognition around the brand.

At Konarski Bzowski, we try to build a design culture that respects the opinions of people who do not necessarily have a formal design background. For us, valuable insight does not come only from people who studied architecture, art, or design. Every person involved in the process can notice something important, because every person experiences space from a human perspective.This is especially important in exhibition design. The final users of our spaces are not only designers, architects, or creative professionals. Very often they are people from completely different backgrounds: clients, business visitors, sales teams, technical teams, managers, or casual fair guests. Their reactions matter because they are often closer to the real audience than a purely design-focused group would be.The challenge is that these opinions cannot always be translated literally into the project. A non-designer may describe a feeling, hesitation, confusion, or need in simple words, but it is the designer’s responsibility to understand what stands behind that reaction and transform it into a spatial decision. Sometimes this means changing the layout, simplifying a visual element, improving orientation, adjusting scale, or strengthening the emotional clarity of the concept.In the case of the Nowy Styl Fair Stand, this kind of dialogue helped keep the project grounded in real human experience. It prevented the concept from becoming too abstract or too closed within a designer’s perspective. The process was not always easier because of this openness, but it was stronger. The tension between professional design ambition and everyday human perception helped sharpen the project and made the final environment more accessible, intuitive, and emotionally understandable.

The atmospheric elements were not treated only as decorative effects. We wanted them to influence the way the space was perceived physically, not only visually. That is why we tested these solutions through prototypes in our workshop before applying them to the final stand.The use of gentle air movement, warm light, and soft material behavior required practical verification. On a rendering, these ideas can look poetic and convincing, but in reality they depend on very precise factors: the strength of the airflow, the distance between fans and fabric, the type and weight of the material, the direction of light, the color temperature, and the way these elements interact with people moving through the space.Prototyping allowed us to check whether the intended atmosphere would actually work in physical conditions. We could observe how the materials responded, whether the movement was subtle enough, whether the light created the right softness, and whether the whole effect felt natural rather than theatrical or artificial.The goal was to create a space that felt alive in a very gentle way. We did not want visitors to consciously think about technical devices or special effects. We wanted them to experience a slight sense of movement, warmth, shelter, and calm — something closer to the feeling of air and light in a natural environment. The prototypes helped us translate that intention into a controlled and buildable solution.

Every project teaches us something, and the Nowy Styl Fair Stand was an important lesson for our team. It was one of the first projects in which we used textile materials on such a large scale, and also one of the rare exhibition stands that did not remain visually static after construction. It moved, responded, and in a subtle way seemed to live.This was significant because exhibition architecture is often perceived as fixed and object-like. In this project, the large suspended forms, soft materials, light, and movement created a different type of spatial presence. The stand was not only seen; it was sensed. Its atmosphere changed through air, fabric, shadow, and the visitor’s movement through the environment. The project documentation already shows how important the suspended “parasol” structures and lighting strategy were to the overall spatial language.For Konarski Bzowski, this confirmed that temporary architecture can be much more than a frame for products. It can become an emotional environment, a sensory experience, and a form of storytelling. It also strengthened our belief that materials such as textiles, when used with technical precision, can give a stand softness, scale, and an almost living quality.The project did not completely change our philosophy, but it expanded it. It reminded us that a fair stand can function not only through form, function, and branding, but also through atmosphere, movement, and bodily perception. These lessons will certainly influence the way we think about future exhibitions, events, and scenographic environments.

For me, the most enduring contribution of the Nowy Styl Fair Stand is the reminder that we spend too much of our lives working not to care deeply about how we feel in work environments. Workplace design should not be reduced to efficiency, furniture specification, or visual branding. It has a direct influence on mood, concentration, comfort, relationships, and the way people experience their everyday lives.This is why the stand treated furniture not as isolated products, but as part of a broader human experience. A chair, desk, sofa, meeting table, acoustic solution, or lounge element only gains its full meaning when it is placed in a context: how people use it, how they move around it, how they communicate, rest, wait, focus, or collaborate. The value of furniture is not only in the object itself, but in the quality of life and work it helps create.I believe this is an important message for both the design community and the business world. Wellbeing should not be seen as a decorative trend or a marketing layer added to a workspace. It is a real human need. A well-designed workplace can support people physically and emotionally, and this should be treated as a strategic value.The Nowy Styl Fair Stand showed that even in a temporary trade fair environment, it is possible to speak about work through atmosphere, comfort, nature, and emotion. Its contribution is the idea that workspace should be designed as an environment for human experience, not only as a container for products or business functions.

The tree metaphor was translated into the project through three main elements: structure, textile, and atmosphere. The large suspended forms were not designed as literal trees, but they carried the emotional logic of tree canopies. They created shelter, orientation, softness, and a sense of being under something protective and organic.The challenge was to transform this poetic idea into a precise and buildable system. The organic forms had to be engineered as repeatable elements, assembled from carefully controlled parts, materials, and suspension points. What looks soft and natural in the final experience always requires a disciplined technical process behind it. The “living” quality of the stand was possible only because the geometry, textile behavior, lighting, airflow, and construction logic were all tested and coordinated.For us, the most important moment came when the elements stopped feeling like static decoration. During prototyping and later during assembly, once the fabric began to react subtly to air movement and the warm light started to filter through the suspended forms, the space gained a different quality. It no longer only represented nature as an image. It began to behave in a gentle, almost living way.That was the point where the concept became fully convincing. The stand was not trying to imitate a forest literally. Instead, it translated some of the sensations associated with nature — shade, movement, warmth, softness, rhythm, and protection — into an exhibition environment. This balance between poetic metaphor and technical precision was essential to the final result.

For designers and architects who want to move beyond surface-level biophilic gestures, the most important discipline is experience. If we have not experienced something ourselves, it is very difficult to design it in a meaningful way. Creativity is built from experience: from places we have visited, materials we have touched, light we have observed, conversations we have had, and emotions we have remembered.This is why I encourage designers to explore the world as much as possible. It is not enough to look at references on a screen. To design spaces that affect people emotionally, we need to understand how space feels in real life: how scale changes the body, how light changes mood, how air movement can make an interior feel alive, how materials behave, and how people respond to atmosphere.In the case of the Nowy Styl Fair Stand, the key was not simply to copy nature, but to translate certain experiences of nature into a spatial language. That required functional thinking, prototyping, testing, technical coordination, and a clear understanding of the visitor’s journey. A project like this cannot be based only on decoration. It has to begin with the human being, the context, and the desired emotional response.The practical lesson is that ambitious sensory design requires both imagination and verification. You need poetic thinking, but also prototypes. You need intuition, but also production knowledge. You need a strong concept, but also the humility to test it physically and adjust it when reality gives you feedback.The most important rule is that emotion must come from experience, not from ornaments. Biophilic design becomes meaningful only when it affects the way people actually feel, move, rest, focus, or connect with a space. And to design such experiences, designers must first collect experiences themselves.