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Top illustrators, representatives of prestigious publishing houses, and industry professionals - every spring, they converge on Bologna for the world's leading children's book fair. The Bologna Children's Book Fair is more than a showcase of illustrations, stories, and marketing ideas; it is also an ideal place to forge professional connections. That is precisely why students from the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen return there year after year not merely to represent the school, but above all to invest in their future.

"I feel a great responsibility these days to ensure our graduates find work. The whole faculty is involved; we look for publishers or partners who might notice what our students are doing. The greatest paradox is that it was at Bologna that Czech publishers first started paying attention to our work," said Renáta Fučíková, head of the Didactic Illustration studio. She notes that Sutnarka students do well at the fair. Alongside the faculty's own presentation, their work also appears in curated selections of prestigious fair exhibitions, as it did again this year.

At the Bologna Ragazzi Award Amazing Bookshelf exhibition, only two Czech books were featured, and Sutnarka was behind both. The first, Pražský golem a moje židovská duše (Prague Golem and My Jewish Soul, published by Práh), was illustrated by Fučíková herself. The second, Jé! (published by Meandr), was illustrated by Marita Kelbl, a former student of hers. Klára Kozlová from the Didactic Illustration studio reached the finals of the Illustrators Exhibition with her illustrations for Ponorka (published by Pikola). Andrej Asztalos, a student from the Comics and Children's Illustration studio, made it to the final of the Silent Book Contest - and two more students from the faculty appeared in the broader nominations of the same competition.

This year, the faculty was represented in Bologna not only by the Didactic Illustration and Comics and Children's Illustration studios, but also by the Book and Paper Shaping studio. Their joint presentation mapped out a range of approaches, with each studio's distinct character clearly legible at the stand. Spring trips to Italy have become a tradition for Sutnarka. "We first attended the fair with the Didactic Illustration studio in 2018, only as visitors. The experience was so powerful that the then-dean, Josef Mištera, decided that the faculty should exhibit there regularly. And so it has been, we go every two years," said Renáta Fučíková. She considers participation in the Bologna Children's Book Fair invaluable, as it gives students essential exposure to the international professional world.