Today we’d like to introduce you to Ksenia Slavina.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Ksenia. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Growing up I was not exposed to art in any form, instead, I observed everything that was around me, nature, textures, and colors. In Vladivostok, where I am from I spend a lot of time by the ocean, hunting for sea urchins and diving for starfish. I lived a life of a free spirit until my family moved to Siberia.
I learned how to build things before I went to elementary school. I did it for fun not recognizing this interest as an artistic side or talent. Recreating and reorganizing the space around me and filling it with my artistic senses has been at my core. I started to explore this passion to a greater extent in high school, where I experimented with fashion and painting.
Furthering my artistic skills, I attended the University of Art in Siberia, Russia. Where I accomplished four years of the interior design program. The art community of Siberia was very limited and conservative. I felt like I was trapped there. It was time for a change in direction.
I did not know what Graphic Design was until I moved to Boston. Boston turned out to be just the place where I found the creative environment that I so desperately wanted. I started my artistic career at Anthropology where I helped to design window displays and continue to produce craft work. While working in the retail industry I found myself drawn to the packaging and branding designs of the products I saw in the store. At a certain point, I decided to go back to school to be the one designing these products.
Massachusetts College of Art & Design made me the designer I am today. Graphic design allows me to share my concepts and my artistic vision with the world. I believe that designers, first of all, are good storytellers. When creating a brand I am writing a new story.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Challenges shape your personality and get you out of the comfortable zone! Honestly, I don’t think I would be fully satisfied taking a smooth road. When I moved to Boston I did not know anyone and did not speak English, for some unknown reason strangers were always talking to me and after some time I was able to communicate back!
I was lucky enough to connect with great people and have a good group of friends who became my family. I think in order to be happy you always have to remember to dedicate some time to yourself, trust your inner gods and take risks to archive your goals.
As a designer, I create my best work when I feel challenged and I am sure I am not the only one. Challenges make life interesting!
Slavina Studio – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Today my business freelance focused. Now I’ve completed my design training I am looking forward to the next a couple of years working in my field. I specialize in brand identity and product design. As I mentioned before, when creating a brand I’m creating a story, identifying unique aspects and core values of the client in a visual form. Conceptual thinking and humor is what sets my design apart. My lifestyle is on the riskier side and so are my designs.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment of my career has been my thesis degree project. Through very extensive research on the history of language, ancient philosophies, and spirituality, I created a card game that stimulates imagination and allows players to find spirituality and the wisdom of life that ancient civilizations preserved in language. The game is called Vedi, this translates to “the knowledge of the past and the future”. Vedi is a set of 49 surrealistic collages based on the ancient pre-Cyrillic Slavic script, each card is a visual representation of multiple connotations of each symbol within the script.
The most satisfying moment was that at the end of my research. I was just able to find proof of my theory on how languages and religions are interconnected and stemming from the same root. In addition, I was able to create a universal visual language based off of this ancient wisdom-religion.
Contact Info:
- Website: uznaesh@myportfolio.com
- Email: uznaesh@gmail.com
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