Ukrainian Graphic Design
tracing the roots
Yurko Gutsulyak
Ukrainian graphic designer and art director
Apart from being the capital of Ukrainian creativity and freedom, Kyiv is a cozy home for paradoxical and controversial ideas.
To some degree, creativity and freedom are synonymous. Over the centuries, the ancient city blended cultural layers adopted from different epochs. Despite so many artistic disputes and challenges, Kyiv never veers into extremism and always aspires to offer a safe space to creatives. While everyone has their own pace, the environment’s dynamic can be overwhelming sometimes and may even border on instability or chaos.
Nevertheless, Kyiv attracts creatives from all over the country and abroad to exchange ideas and realize ambitions.
Kyiv is a dominant platform for Ukrainian design but is not the only one, with other cities contributing a lot, such as Kharkiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Lutsk, to name a few.
The phenomenon of Ukrainian design is young and demands attention from researchers, art critics, and journalists.
Its history is being written. To start a conversation, we need to split the timeline into two parts: before regaining the Ukrainian Independence in 1991 and after. The later period of Modern Ukrainian design is more vibrant and relevant as this was when the term “design” entered the Ukrainian language.
Ukrainian design was reinvented rather than born. It skipped many evolutionary processes and often adopted Western achievements without understanding their value.
