INSIDE UKRAINE

Sasha Alymov and Alex Twista are TWID Creative Studio based in Kyiv. Their philosophy is ‘be bold, be brave and creatively disruptive’. However, the war has brought a new meaning to the word ‘brave’ for them.

 

When the missiles started to fall, and life as they knew it stopped, shock delivered apathy that blocked their ability to carry on as they had before. Their priorities changed.

 

“first of all it was all about just trying to be calm and stop feeling disoriented – and trying to understand what we needed to do, and how to do that”.

 

They lost interest in aspects of design that had previously driven them, however in a bid to overcome and to make sense of their new norm, they began to explore how other creatives and designers felt, and found they shared common ground.

 

They were inspired by fellow founders and leaders - people who wanted to innovate and/or disrupt their industry. The war motivated them to create collaborations with peers and in doing so, extinguished the apathy and inspired creativity.

 

Opportunities opened up to build bridges with western companies - one of which was Red Bee Media who two weeks after the war started, invited them to ‘Twin’ with them. The process of sharing knowledge and experiences was empowering and pathed a way to richer creative. 

 

They have since expanded the concept of ‘Twinning’ and launched https://www.twinforvictory.com/ where agencies and creatives from across Europe can become friends, collaborators and most importantly help to keep Ukraine’s creative industry alive and boost their economy - uniting Ukrainian and British creative forces for victory.

 

“Ukrainians are professional, hard-working people and we fight hard for everything in our lives.”

 

Creatives weren’t so politically motivated before, but now everyone wants to help with the war effort. They’ve learned about weapons and the aid that UK and other Western countries are providing, and all people - not just creative people are feeling the change. Kyiv had been a Russian speaking city till the start of the war, then in a defiant stand everyone rejected Russian and went back to speaking Ukrainian.

 

This heralded a critical cultural shift across many aspects of Ukrainian life. By rejecting Russian influences they were able to help redefine the Ukrainian identity – and reinforce their core values of being defiant, victorious and brave. Before the war, ‘brave’ to them meant pushing design boundaries and being creative agitators and disruptors. Now it also means standing up for human rights, democratic values and flicking the finger at Putin even when missiles are falling all around. Even the blackouts don’t stop them working, they just worked out the places they could go that still had electricity.

 

Despite the war, and with a new drive for international collaboration their business has expanded and they’ve won clients in Canada, Iraqi Kurdistan, Uzbekistan, USA, the UK and Korea.

 

And their new understanding of ‘brave’ Twid will make sure they continue to not only survive, but also thrive.

 

Here is their thinking behind their Peace Union Symbol:

 

“When I started thinking about the symbol, I thought we should show some type of action - everybody can stretch out and open their hand and say ‘STOP’. You can do this in a democratic society - everybody can make changes and show opinion. Showing your opinion is so important. When talking about the form itself, it’s dynamic, and has an interesting meaning - the names of the lines on the hand are connected to the reasons to stop the war. Life, love and fate are all connected with our destiny. Just like the lines on the hands they are different for everybody, and everybody can draw them themselves, the dynamic element of the symbol is that the lines can be slightly different with each new drawn iteration, making it unique to that person. Much like the lines themselves. This will create a connection to its creator, which will make it memorable.”

Alex Alymov