School of Form graduate’s design among Central Europe's top final projects

Graduation Projects 2025

Graduation Projects is a regional review showcasing outstanding works from Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. It is not a typical competition with rankings or prizes. Selection alone signals that a project stands out in graphic or industrial design.

For the 24th edition, the jury chose 30 projects out of 381 submissions. Among them was Agata Germain’s "Around the Fire" project, supervised by Professor Ewa Klekot and Bartosz Mucha. It is a set of glassblowing tools designed for users with smaller hands and less physical strength.

Breaking the glass ceiling at the furnace

Traditionally, furnace workstations in glassworks were reserved almost exclusively for men. Women mainly took on supporting roles—carrying, grinding, polishing, or decorating finished pieces. However, as Agata Germain points out, this dynamic is beginning to shift. Today, women make up the majority of the new generation of educated Polish glassmakers.

Yet early in their training, they often encounter a fundamental obstacle: heavy, oversized tools in a "one-size-fits-all" model make learning the craft and working with precision incredibly difficult.

Growing interest in working with glass shows that the Polish industry is tailored to one specific type of worker: a tall, strong man with large hands. For those who do not fit that model, working in the glassworks can be frustrating and sometimes even impossible.

Agata Germain
School of Form graduate

This observation led Germain to design a set of ergonomic glassblowing tools. Each element was carefully adjusted to better fit smaller hands, offering users greater comfort and better control over the molten material.

By rethinking scale and usability, the project makes the workshop more accessible. Instead of forcing users to adapt to the tools, it allows tools to adapt to the user, supporting a wider range of people entering the field.

Explore the “Around the Fire” toolset