About me
My story starts with MS Paint on my dad's laptop in a small town in southern Ukraine - and has somehow taken me to OFFF Barcelona. But let's not skip ahead just yet.
I grew up in Oleshky, in the South of Ukraine. From as early as I can remember, I was the kid glued to the family computer, messing around in MS Paint and making increasingly chaotic PowerPoint presentations for no one in particular.
When I hit middle school, I decided the world needed to see my work, so I started a YouTube channel. (No, you cannot find it. I made sure of that.) I never became the famous YouTuber I planned to be, but I did crack Photoshop for the first time at 12 - sorry, Adobe - and figured out enough about video and photo editing to realize I actually loved this.
A bit later, I joined a local informatics team, where I discovered graphic design properly and taught myself Illustrator. We competed in regional and national competitions, placing in the top three more than once. At the same time I was doing Olympiads in maths, physics, chemistry and informatics - which, combined with a slightly obsessive passion for cooking, somehow convinced me to enrol in a Bachelor's in Technological Expertise and Food Safety in Kyiv.
A couple of weeks after I turned 17, russian forces invaded Ukraine and occupied my hometown. I left everything behind and moved to France.
(If you want to support Ukraine, you can donate to United24 here.)
I arrived knowing exactly two words of French: bonjour and merci. I finished Ukrainian high school online, kept up with my Kyiv university online, and simultaneously enrolled in a French high school to learn the language - which means I did two high schools and a university in the same year. I do not recommend it.
When my French was good enough, I joined a Bachelor's in Multimedia and Internet Professions in Montbéliard. From the first day I knew I was in the right place. I dropped the food safety degree and never looked back.
In 2024, my university took me to OFFF Barcelona for the first time. I remember standing in that auditorium watching people present work I could barely believe existed, and making myself a promise: in ten years, I'd be on that stage.
Two years later - not ten - my project was selected for OFFF NXT, a programme that lets ten students present their work to an international audience. I stood on that stage and presented a reimagined visual identity for the OFFF festival itself.
After graduating with my Bachelor's and a Student Merit Award, I moved to Paris to start a Master's in Art Direction.
I'm now looking for opportunities in branding and art direction where I can build identities that actually feel like something. If that sounds like what you need - let's talk.