Mean Girl

Philadelphia-based designer Julianna Holowka breaks free and gives in to the mean

By Oscar Raymundo
Published: August 13th, 2007 | 4:17pm

Julianna Holowka considers herself simply a designer. No prefixes or slashes or compound descriptions.

“The title is a little broad, I know, but that’s what I am,” says the Philadephia-based design artist. “I don’t like to limit myself.”

And to Holowka, the possibilities of design have proven to be limitless. From lamps to stage productions, her designs have been showcased in various forms, most notably in a recent collection of greeting cards.

These cards are not your traditional sappy Hallmark fare, however. Holowka refers to them as Mean Cards, and that’s sometimes an understatement. The cards feature a child-like stick figure with words only a true friend could take. “It will make everything all better,” reads a favorite with the stick figure offering a martini. The meanie mania continues with “Your degree is useless” and “I don’t know… he might be gay.”

“It’s my sense of humor,” she says about the black humor that have made the cards one of her most popular items. So far, she has over 40 cards fully finished and ready to be sold.

Raised in Livonia, MI, a suburb just outside of Detroit, Holowka always had an affinity for wanting to make things pretty. Her grandfather was a carpenter and her grandmother a painter, so artistry and practicality were the two things she always wanted to fuse. She considers herself a career student — the University of Michigan, Olivet College, the University of Illinois, and the Art Institute of Philadelphia have helped her perfect her craft.

After briefly toying with the idea of being a doctor, “or something like that,” Holowka realized that the art of design was more her style. Armed with a degree in industrial design, she pursued her passion professionally.

It was in Chicago, known for its friendly locals, that Holowka learned to be mean.

She was working with death metal musicians, designing their intricate Medieval Times-themed stage production climaxing with the slaying of the beast onstage. “It incorporated several aspects of design; it was original and very out there.”

But that’s where the fairy tale ended. “Due to some unforeseen circumstances, I ended up losing my apartment, which was also the space where I worked, my studio,” Holowka says. She was forced to place all her materials in storage and all of her projects were put on hold — indefinitely.

Cue in the Debbie Downer stage: “I was feeling really sorry for myself,” Holowka says. “I had no money so I went to the art store and all I could afford was paper and watercolors.”

Her imagination had no price tag so Holowka started playing around with various ideas, coming up with designs and sayings to make fun of her situation, to tell the world, tongue in cheek, to pay attention to her. Using her designs as a way to wallow in self-pity gave birth to the bitingly sardonic Mean Cards collection.

“They’re not meant to be hurtful at all,” Holowka says. “I’m just mainly poking fun at myself and my situation and acknowledging that there are people out there with way bigger problems.”

“I wanted to make the designs have a practical application, so I thought they would make excellent cards that you can send to friends to brighten up their day by teasing, the way really close friends do.”

And friends help contribute to the cards’ sass while keeping them just harsh enough without offending. “Sometimes I go a little far with the insults,” Holowka says. “I run them by friends to see what they think, and they’re usually honest and tell me if I’ve gone too far. I use my good judgment, since I try to get as close to the line as possible without being downright rude.”

But her friends and her customers get Holowka’s humor… well, for the most part. “People seem to get that I’m not being serious,” Holowka says. “The most negative remark I got was when I was doing a stationary show in New York and a woman comes up to me and says ‘How dare you? Does your mother know you do this? You should be ashamed!’ Obviously, she didn’t get it.”

<img src="http://venuszine.com/stories/juliana3.jpg" border="0" height="333" width="250" alt="juliana3.jpg" align="right" />Fortunately Holowka has not been stuck with paper, however, she also designs home furnishings, including lamps rendered in white linen and flowering pillows. “As a designer, I try to not stick to one specific craft or medium. I try to be more broad and more practical, not just focus on print work.

Again, the designer does not sacrifice practicality for pretty. The self-proclaimed career student continues to learn and try new forms in which to express her creative side.

“Recently, I’ve been wanting to learn a new craft and take metal class and work more with screen printing and wood,” Holowka says. “I think it would be very interesting to be able to manipulate that and explore the possibilities.”

“It’s tedious to work on a specific project for too long. That way if I get bored, or if inspiration is not there, I can switch to a different project and work on that,” Holowka says. “It solves two problems and makes me that much more productive.”

Holowka also states that her location has been essential to her creative process. She has been in living and working in Philadelphia for over five years and it has proven to be ideal for the emerging designer.

“I’m close enough to New York and tap into those resources but without all the high costs. I can do a lot of things here without having to worry about the financial situation; I’m free to create,” Holowka says. “The city is very supportive of the designers and artists, the art community is thriving and it’s very exciting to be a part of that.”

Holowka is happy being mean in Philadephia, living the life she has designed for herself.