Red Valkyries is a publication that intertwines the personal and the political. It was created as the Slovak edition of a book by American author Kristen Ghodsee, telling the stories of five remarkable women—radical socialists and feminists from Eastern Europe. Their lives, full of determination and political struggle, deserved a visual language that could be both gentle and strong.

We wanted to create something that feels feminine—not in the stereotypical sense, but in its complexity. Something that can be soft and powerful at once. The design is built around a deep brick-red color, paired with dark brown typography as colors, that carry weight, but with warmth and closeness.

The book itself is small, soft, and pleasant to hold. The slightly translucent paper adds an element of play—a subtle detail that reveals itself only after turning a few pages. The archival photographs of the women portrayed in the book formed a chapter of their own. In black and white, they felt somewhat distant, so we decided to colorize them—not to “improve” them, but to bring them closer, to emphasize that these are not forgotten stories, but ones that still resonate today.

Red Valkyries was published in 2024—the same year many Slovak publishers chose to boycott the competition The Most Beautiful Slovak Book. In solidarity, the Czech competition The Most Beautiful Czech Book of the Year created a special selection of Slovak titles, among which this book was included.