Crafting a data-rich technology page that remains accessible and engaging poses a significant challenge for any web designer. Fortunately, at Zajno, we’ve gained some expertise in this area! Today we are sharing behind the scenes of the work on the BiomSense website.

Timeframe: 3.5 months

Zajno role: concept, art direction, UI, UX, animation, engineering, full-cycle website creation

Link: https://www.biomesense.com/

About the client

BiomeSense is a microbiome startup developing novel tools aimed to revolutionize the diagnostic use of microbiome data and bring tangible benefits to human health. During our collaboration, we designed and developed a new, slick, and intuitive website that more effectively communicates the company’s purpose and value proposition. We used such technologies as Webflow, Figma, Adobe After Effects, and Cinema 4D.

Visualizing complex bioscience technology in 3D

One of our primary design goals was to find an effective way to showcase BiomeSense’s complex technology through smart 3D graphics and infographics. To create them, we first made a design draft and a storyboard with 2D sketches. We consulted a lot with the client to make sure our visuals would hit the spot (being exactly what the client was after). Only after approving the sketches with the client, we moved on to recreating them in 3D. We built the entire website on Webflow, creating custom animations and using no templates.

Addressing the challenge of the informational overload

Since BiomeSense’s intended target audiences are scientists, biopharmaceutical companies, and academic institutions, we had to come up with a highly informative and clear website to best serve their needs. Sure thing, the website was to include a great deal of copy, therefore our main challenge was to avoid clutter. Our solution was to apply a clever layout and balance the text out with additional graphics that visualized the concepts explained in the text.

What is the result?

• Created dozens of 3D visuals and infographics that effectively showcase the company’s technology & value proposition
• Built the entire website on Webflow with custom 3D animations
• Made an informationally saturated website look simple, modern, and aesthetically pleasing
• Clearly visually demonstrated BiomeSense’s entire technology ecosystem
• Won 4 trophies on CSS Design Awards and 2 trophies on Awwwards / Nominated on Awwwards, CSS & FWA

Conclusions

When working on biotech designs, maintaining focus on handling substantial volumes of data is paramount. Using 3D animation and balancing between visual appeal and information content, we have created a website that is both stylish and functional.

BiomeSense website case study: presenting the revolution of human microbiome research was originally published in Zajno Crew on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How to use design to win over users and create a sense of trust in a fintech company? Having worked with crypto clients, Zajno knows exactly how important it is to make the design friendly, bright, and welcoming to increase site engagement. Today we reveal the secrets of how we created the Ooki design.

Timeframe: 1 month

Zajno role: concept, art direction, product design, UI, UX, animation, engineering, full-cycle product development

Link: https://zajno.com/work/ooki

About the client

The ‘Ooki’ platform is a reliable and distinctive way to trade, land, and stake your crypto. The platform combines all functions for trading and solves crypto issues in one place. The company’s philosophy inspired us to create branding, design, and animation for the homepage with the help of Lottie library. Zajno team joined all efforts to find the balance between the complexity of this advanced subject and important information for crypto lovers.

Space for everybody to share a trading experience

Our goal was to streamline user experience and make it stand out. The task was challenging in terms of the website translation since words take up different amounts of space in English, Japanese, and Korean. Now, when we optimized the space for text and characters, the page is running like a clock.

Accept cookies as a visual identity

We strived to create the design of the website as unique as possible since there are multiple crypto platforms that look alike and remain unnoticed. Here at Zajno, we utilized live and cartoon characters which proved to be compatible with the overall idea of the website. Moreover, crypto has always been associated with humorless graphics and hectic stock exchange, but never with something light and entertaining. By using a cookie as a symbol, we told a visual story of the platform’s features and solutions.

What is the result?

• Designed and developed a homepage with 2D animation and illustrations in a short period of time;
• Created 3 homepage versions in 3 different languages;
• Made a portfolio with dozens of new cartoon characters;
• Won 4 trophies on CSS Design Awards, and 1 trofie on Awwwards

Conclusions

Given it’s a website dealing with crypto issues, we endeavored to instill the essence of the crypto world in these cartoon characters and make them look trustworthy to people. In other words, we aimed to dispel a fear of ‘unseen’ online currency through cartoon-looking creatures.

Ooki website case study: a fun adventure through the crypto world was originally published in Zajno Crew on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here at Zajno, our team of 28 designers, artists, developers and marketers work remotely from the US, Poland, Ukraine, and the UK. In these days of lockdowns and border restrictions, we rarely meet in person — but productivity and team spirit remain high. Here are a few things we did to help bring this about.

In the beginning was the word

First, a bit about me. When I started at Zajno and even before the Covid times, I did not see a single other soul at the company for several months. Of course, I corresponded with colleagues by email, gave instructions, allocated tasks — but never actually set eyes on anyone. People even joked that I was just a figment of artificial intelligence.

That was all in good humour, but there was a darker lining: when all that you know of someone is the direct demands they’re making of you, it’s easy to start imagining things. The most innocent requests or responses can start to seem sarcastic or passive-aggressive — and so it’s essential to keep opening up channels through which our shared humanity can flow. Namely…

1. Fill in the background

Your job isn’t just about completing the tasks immediately at hand: you also have to create a working relationship that will keep productivity flowing sustainably. So, start by finding some common ground. Find out where your colleagues are, what’s happening there, what people eat for breakfast/lunch/dinner in LA, Delaware, Warsaw, Kharkiv, or whatever. Few tasks are more important than this kind of rapport-building.

2. Find time to meet, but keep it brief

At Zajno our working day begins with a morning sync: just enough time to see each other’s faces, remotely share a coffee, and ensure we all know what we’re doing for the coming hours. This all goes so much better in sound and pictures than it ever could in text.

3. Cut yourself some Slack

A well-designed task manager doesn’t just save time: it can make your communication more free-flowing, meaningful, and productive. We love Slack for the way it lets us dedicate space to particular projects while still giving other team members a clear window to what’s happening. Plus there are now cool tools like Huddle, which we use a lot.

But there’s more. Our designers and marketers are huge fans of Asana, which is great for solving organizational issues. Jira rules for development. And for my own work with budgets and studio uploads, I get massive value from the intuitiveness of Float.

4. Take a moment to reflect

Every Friday I write a summary of the week, looking back over all we’ve done and achieved. I’m always humbled by the work people have put in, and I take care to highlight any notable contributions from across our teams. It’s not as good as sharing a beer together, but it does a lot to remind people of the value of their work.

5. Turn on your camera

My days are full of Google Meet calls, and I make a point always of using video as well as audio. Because so much of communication is non-verbal, the picture not only makes you feel more connected, but also increases the information you exchange. With fewer barriers to communication, you feel more relaxed, have a better time and get more done. It’s a virtuous circle.

6. Value your time

Before we embark on a new task, we estimate how long it will take, and get that estimate approved by the team lead. Working remotely makes it all too easy for time management to get lax, and for tasks to spill over into team-members’ personal time — but having a clear sense of how long is needed for each stage of the project helps overcome this.

When the project ends, we look back and see how we did. If we went over time, was that because we under-estimated, or because something unforeseeable cropped up, or something else? We use the results of these evaluations to improve future estimates.

In conclusion…

Some of us yearn for the day when we can return to our old, offline lives — while others rather enjoy their newfound isolation. But wherever you stand, this new virtual world calls for a whole different set of tips and tricks in order to experience it at its best. Finding just the right combination and balance of these isn’t easy, but in the process of adjusting, we’re finding ourselves discovering things we’d never have known otherwise. So, onward and upward!

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Six steps toward a better remote work life was originally published in Zajno Crew on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As far as we at Zajno are concerned, there are no bad customers. OK — there probably are one or two out there somewhere. But in our lifetime so far, we’re happy to say that everyone who’s approached us about helping them fulfill their digital ambitions has done so in good faith and with honest goals.

But the fact is that the process of creating digital products is complex, and for anyone who is unfamiliar with that process, it can be pretty daunting. Accordingly, when new prospective clients approach us, they oftentimes feel nervous about what lies ahead — and that nervousness may present itself in the form of some challenging behaviors. These can include:

• Reluctance to consider new or unorthodox ideas; a fear of standing out
• Problems understanding the stages of the design process
• Difficulty putting feedback into a positive, actionable form

Now, if these commonplace phenomena are not properly handled, they can fuse together to create a more general roadblock to achieving a successful outcome. Most scarily, this can come in one of the two following forms:

• Breakdown in trust
• Loss of direction

Before we go in

To deal with this problem in a really fundamental way, we have to get a little conceptual and ask: “where does the design process begin?”

The simple answer might be that the process starts with a list of requirements from the client that the agency must fulfill: to create “an outstanding, appealing and interactive website” or “a highly-optimized mobile app with geolocation and chat capabilities,” perhaps.

But we think that’s the wrong answer. Instead, for us, design begins with anticipating the arrival of each new client, and considering how we will guide them through the very first stages of thinking about what they want to create.

Fresh thinking doesn’t mean everything we do is avant-garde. The first major step of our contact with a new client is usually as traditional as it comes: a call. But within that call, a carefully-planned process plays out — and sets in motion a chain of events that both moves us towards an understanding of the client, and moves the client towards a fuller and more structured grasp of the route towards the product they want to create.

The building blocks of success

The precise order in which the process takes place varies on a case-by-case basis — but what doesn’t change is the overall ground we ensure is covered as we make our acquaintance with each new client. That ground can be divided into the following areas:

Creating conditions of trust

We think that before you can build a business-to-business relationship, you must first create a human-to-human one. That means understanding the deeper motivations of your client — not just their immediate business goals.

There’s really no formula here, but we think that by opening up, putting ourselves out there, and even exposing our vulnerabilities, we can encourage new clients to do just the same. And when a group of people share in a process like this, it’s very hard for a sense of trust not to begin to emerge.

Learning to love new ideas

The internet is full of websites and apps that look pretty much the same as each other. We can’t really blame anyone for this: in a world full of risk, it’s understandable that people so often try to play things safe. The problem is that by playing things safe, you expose yourself to the biggest danger of all: the danger of forgettability.

People often believe that on this front, they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place: either go with the flow, risking mundanity, or make a desperate bid to be original — and take the chance of looking a fool. We advocate neither of these: instead, we help clients to understand that by carefully analyzing what’s already out there, it’s possible to take an evidence-based approach to doing things differently — and better.

The likes of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are often seen as genius mavericks, but they are/were also incredibly precise and fastidious analysts. For us too, it has been by combining precision with courage that we have built the successful track record we can now boast.

Understanding how design works

As designers, we’re always amazed to see that some of our colleagues in the industry think it’s their clients’ responsibility to understand how their working process operates. Well, that’s not us.

Our clients come from a rich variety of different sectors, from finance to horticulture, music to artificial intelligence and telecommunications. They are experts in their own fields — but there is no reason to expect them to be experts in how design works.

Rather, it’s our responsibility to help them understand the complex nature of the processes they’re becoming involved with. This is always challenging but constantly educational for us because the apotheosis of good design is understanding how non-designers will experience what we do. Helping our clients to understand the design process is an absolutely key part of that.

Mapping the route forward

Because we often work with young companies, and because even established firms are now evolving faster than ever, the nature of the product we’re building can often change over the course of its creation. Indeed, because we help our clients to think about their businesses in ways they may not have done before, it’s even possible that their business itself might change in the course of our work.

This can be disconcerting for people and organizations that thought they had everything planned out — but our job is to anticipate these changes in perspective at the earliest possible moment, and to help our clients navigate them in a calm, rational way.

Making feedback constructive

When you’re paying money to have something created, and what begins to appear before your eyes differs somehow from what you expected to see, it’s 100% understandable that you might become a touch agitated. This is the moment at which calm and efficient communication between client and design team is at its most important — because it’s the moment at which we need to steer the ship back on course.

And so, we created a manual to help clients construct their feedback in the most constructive and productive way. It helps them tell us what needs to change in a way that will make it possible to action those changes effectively. It helps them create feedback that is descriptive — explaining what is wrong and why — rather than being prescriptive.

Moving forward together

The process I’ve sketched above is a work in progress — and we’re very happy, and even proud, to be open about that. We live in a fast-changing world — and at Zajno we embrace change, and enjoy constantly adapting to it. We don’t think life would be easier if things stood still — we think it would be intolerably boring.

The design process is a vast, complex behemoth — and we’re constantly humbled and exhilarated to count ourselves among its ambassadors. We also take that responsibility very seriously. I’ve written this article with the aim of explaining something about the processes we use in our work — but I’m really happy to report that the act of writing it has also helped me develop my own understanding of those processes. Thanks a lot for reading!

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Building Confidence: How to Guide Clients to Success was originally published in Zajno Crew on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Every morning, or whenever it is we wake up, another day of our lives starts. For some of us it is quite exciting — just think of all the things we could do today! For some it is another struggle, and some are quite content just to be alive and well.

We get up, do our morning routine — brush our teeth, wash our bodies, check our information channels, make plans, get dressed, eat food and start doing something we believe we must do. Each and every one of us has their reasons for doing so. But how often do we think of why exactly it is that we do what we do? What is it that drives us? Why do we get out of bed, leave our sanctuaries, and dive into the everlasting rapid stream of life?

Here, at Zajno, we’ve been working hard to help others create digital products. For most of our clients it’s a way to achieve fulfillment from their lives, a solution to their dilemma, and, of course, a path to the financial freedom to do what they ultimately want to do. It can be making others happy by giving, or making themselves happier by traveling, going to concerts, creating art, or anything else one can think of. We, humans, are indeed peculiar beings.

So, what’s the point?

As many other organizations, Zajno is here to make this world a better place. Not in a global way, of course, we simply can’t help everyone with what we do. It’s the impact of the digital products we create that might make bigger change, but this depends on numerous things and conditions, sometimes beyond our control.

Perspective clients who are in need of our services, have an expectation of a better life after our cooperation. What we do is supposed to help them succeed. We never really thought of why exactly we do this though. Why is it that we get out of our beds, go through the daily commute, come to our office and turn on our computers (as well as our brains after another cup of coffee, especially on Mondays).

I believe that the quest for the answers is as valuable as the answers themselves. Our journey to understand our clients’ “Why”, as well as our own, had given us a lot of experience — we researched a lot of various industries to be able to cater for the needs of people who these industries affect. We learned by making mistakes and at times failing miserably. We learned by succeeding, celebrating the feeling of accomplishment and smiles on our customers’ faces. We pretty much did anything it took to do our job well.

Quest for the answers is as valuable as the answers themselves.

But recently we realized that if someone asked us “Why do you do what you do?”. We wouldn’t be able to give a definite answer. Creating awesome digital products? Of course. Helping others succeed? Yes. Growing as humans and professionals? Totally. But what is the ultimate purpose that drives us? That fulfills us? That makes us feel inspired and motivated? Knowing the answer would help us stay on the right track and sharpen our focus. It would serve as a North Star to guide us through the mist of all the information that we perceive and all the uncertainties it can create.

I’ve come to learn that for every business, and person out there, it is absolutely important to understand their “Why”. Because if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything. Because you cannot expect your team to get out of bed every day to do something without understanding how they can contribute to a better world. To do something less than that is foolish. By simply staying true to this ideal one can avoid losing your way.

So, how do you do it?

I started researching this matter and stumbled upon a great book by Patrick Lencioni called “The Advantage” (Special thanks to Alicja Colon and the Focus Lab team for the hook up). In his book, Patrick states that in order to become a healthy organization you need to have answers to 6 critical questions that I shall list below.

1. Why do we exist?
2. How do we behave?
3. What do we do?
4. How will we succeed?
5. What is important now?
6. Who must do what?

It might sound easy, but if you think about it, it is quite hard to answer these questions right away. Which is perfectly OK, as the clarity process does and should take time. In this article, I’d like to concentrate on the first question.

The answer to “Why” has to be completely idealistic.

The author believes that it is important for the answer to be completely idealistic. Everyone in an organization needs to know that at the core of what they do lies something greater. “We want to create digital products that will shape the future of how people interact with mediums” sounds pretty cool, but why do we want people to do so? What lies beyond? Literally, how does this contribute to a better world? The answer has to be based on the real motivations of the people who founded the organization, and not something that just sounds cool on paper. This has to be in no way related to marketing, although having an answer might really facilitate getting more business in the long run.

Categories of purpose

So, how do we go about defining our core purpose as an organization? In his book, Patrick describes several categories of purpose, and each of those can be valid. Identifying which one of those fits your organization better can be very helpful in sharpening your focus. Let’s take a closer look.

1. Customer. When everything a given organization does is aimed at serving the needs of their customers. That if a customer has a need — it’s organization’s obligation to fulfill it. A good example provided in the book is the department store Nordstrom. It’s not about the fashion, although they must be good at it to succeed. It is simply about giving their customers what they are looking for.
2. Industry. This category is about being really into a certain industry. Pretty much, about passion towards what one does. This is how we started Zajno. We were and are really passionate about design, and everything we did was initially aimed at adding to that industry, helping it develop and inspire others to do great things. Over the course of time, though, this ceased to be the only “Why” of ours, as we are starting to find even more meaning in what we do.
3. Greater cause. This is not necessarily about what an organization does, but more about something it is connected to. This could be anything. To give an example, everything that I do personally is aimed at connecting people and erasing misunderstanding between them — especially when it comes to different cultures, continents. Facilitating collective enlightenment. I strongly believe that if we, people, could relate to each other more, if we wanted to actually listen to each other and understand, there would be way less evil and unnecessary aggression in this world.
4. Community. This category is about serving the people in a certain geographical location. This can be creating a design school for educating aspiring designers, or hosting stand up comedy shows to entertain the community and make people a little more relaxed and happy.
5. Employees. This category of purpose is all about serving the people who are a part of your organization. In his book Patrick gives an example of a company he worked with that paved driveways. When he asked the CEO about his reasons for founding the company, at first he was giving him answers like “Making driving safer for everyone” or “Making it possible to park vehicles”, which was pretty uninspiring. But after a while the CEO had this epiphany — he said that the main reason for starting the company was about helping first-generation Americans find good jobs, so they could live their lives the way they wanted. It’s the freedom I referred to in the beginning of the article. He said that even if the paving market vanished, they would easily switch to painting or carpentry, as long as this would help his employees.
6. Wealth. This one is about generating wealth for the owners. Some companies have owners that see their employees solely as a means of income. I’m really proud to say that Zajno is not this type of organization, and I personally believe that having a purpose like this is shallow. Unless there’s a greater master-plan that comes after.

Understanding which category of purpose your organization’s “Why” falls within will help you answer the first question in a more comprehensive way. Another thing that is important to understand is that we don’t need to think of our “Why” as a differentiator. Really, there can be companies of absolutely different industries that believe in the same cause. The goal is not to stand out, but to understand what you really believe in and stick to it.

Where we stand

Currently at Zajno we are going through the process of strengthening our focus by understanding our “Why” more clearly. Me and my studio partner Sasha, who is also a creative director here at Zajno, constantly think and discuss this. Once we have a clear answer, we will do everything it takes to support what we believe in.

What about you? Do you believe you have an answer to this question? Please share your thoughts in comments.

I will keep you updated on our developments as well as sharing more insights about what we’ve learned along our journey here at Zajno. Feel free to drop us a line, we love to connect and share experiences.

P.S.: Zajno also just launched our Weekly Music Playlist on Spotify! We thought it would be awesome to share the music that inspires us. Feel free to follow us on Spotify as well and stay tuned for some sweet tunes!

P.P.S.: — Leave a comment and tell us how we can improve our storytelling for next time, ask us a question, arrange to meet up, or make a suggestion for a follow up piece.
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On a Quest for the Ultimate “Why” was originally published in Zajno Crew on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In a word, metaphor is an unexpected comparision of two dissimilar objects. Comparing a car to a cheetah because of its speed capabilities, or comparing a car to a spaceship because of an innovative technology used — these are metaphors. The important consequence of these two examples: metaphor is a simple, clean and powerful way to represent competitive advantages of your product.

Metaphor and UI elements

But let’s start with something simple. Putting magnifying glass as a symbol of search, small icon of house as a reference to the main page — are also metaphors. What should you know about UI metaphors? Traditions are appreciated here more than creative approach. Do not invent new symbol for search or zoom out button. If you want your user to add something, put the plus icon. Don’t try to come up with something new: it will be not innovative, but will also confuse others.

Metaphorical Interface

Metaphorical Interfaces (e.g. bookshelf for library app or office desk for dashboard) were quite a trend about 6 years ago. But not anymore: it’s ok to use simple grid for the list of books. And bookshelf background will be considered busy in our age of minimalistic, clean and flat UI.

But metaphorical interfaces are still widely spread in apps for children, because of peculiarity of children’s abstract thinking. It’s not developed enough in childhood.

Logo, Illustrations and Ads

That’s a world of visual metaphors. As opposed to icons, creativeness and unexpected ideas are welcomed here. Or, in more specific words — necessary.

As a designer you get a brief, you get a product description from your costumer and move to the “Now what?” phase.

You need a fresh, vivid visual metaphor, how do you create one?

How to create a Metaphor

1. Association lists: similarity

Try to express product advantage in one world. Is it speed? Safety and security? Freedom? Connection to other people? When you’re done, make a list of these associations to this quality. For example, new insurance program gives a client feeling of safety and protection. Go ahead and list all the things, situations and objects that are “safe” for you personally. Don’t judge or limit yourself. Seat belt, parachute, safety rope, guardian angel, bodyguard, armor suit… Write at least 20 items, don’t stop and think too hard when writing.

Go through your list: I bet there’s already something to start with.

2. Association lists: contrast

Do the same, but list everything that is dangerous. This way you will express the problem that is solved by your product. Talking about client’s problem is also a perfect way of presenting a new service.

3. Using pop culture and well known symbols

Write down at least 20 characters, places and objects from everyday culture. Then try to combine it with your product.

Batman — even superhero could be using this insurance.

Mona Lisa — why is she smiling this way? What if her secret is a good insurance?

Shakespeare — “Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good we oft might win,
by fearing to attempt.” No more doubts with this awesome new insurance program!

It may look weird or make you laugh. Or make you disappointed. But remember: nobody will ever see these silly lists. It’s a path to brilliant ideas, and it’s ok to write whatever you want if it’s something that will work in future. And it will!

4. “What if…”

Ask yourself some wild questions about the product or life itself. What if music had a color? What would happen if people could read each other’s minds? What if your product was used by Dalai Lama? What if an alien saw your product? What if an alien made the same product? This way of looking for metaphors is a bit dangerous, because you’re not focusing on product advantage and there’a a risk to come up with funny idea that will not sell anything. But it’s not a reason not to try.

Just keep it in mind.

5. Using idioms

Language is a great source of metaphors: take one and draw it. “A little bird told me”, “in a nutshell”, “red tape”, “the coast is clear”, “to be in red”, etc.

So take a look at your product advantages, come up (ask Google if needed) with a list of idioms with this word and try to visualize them.

Working with visual metaphors is really helpful for improving your imagination and creativity. And beneficial for you design career as well.

There’s some further reading to dive into the topic:

Creativity for Graphic Designers Paperback
by Mark Oldach

Using Metaphors in Design was originally published in Zajno Crew on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

One of Zajno’s top creatives opens up about his process, his inspirations — and why it takes persistence to make it as a full-time artist.

When people look at a Zajno product we want them to see a single, cohesive entity — something which feels as though it was produced by a unified creative force. But though fostering a collective sensibility is vital, our individual creatives are also absolutely their own people — each with a distinct story about how they got to where they are now.

Our top artists also increasingly have their own loyal fanbases — and in recent weeks, one person in particular has been receiving a lot of attention. His name is Oleh Harlamov, and as an illustrator he’s been making a vital contribution to Zajno’s visual style since he arrived at the studio a year ago.

Because we think an artist’s story is central to what makes their work valuable, we decided to gather together some of the questions that Oleh has lately received from fans of his work, in the hope that his answers might help guide the next generation of illustrators. Here’s what Oleh had to say…

Oleh, what made you decide to become an artist?

Ever since I was a child I’ve loved forming impressions of the world. First, I would simply sketch everything I saw around me. Then, if I really liked something, I would make a more detailed drawing of it. Eventually, this all led to painting. I think it was basically just that I liked imagining stuff.

By the time I had to start deciding what sort of education I wanted to get, I didn’t have much doubt about the direction to go in. I feel pretty lucky to have realized so early on what my life’s passion was to be: I was the boy who definitely knew the answer to that annoying question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

So it was that I entered art school, setting my sights on becoming an illustrator.

Can you describe your signature style in 3 words?

Simple, sincere, joyous.

Could you say some more about this style, and how you got to it?

I don’t see my style as something static and permanently defined — it’s more like a living creature, every day throbbing with life and change. It’s not just about what I like and dislike in art — it’s also about my mood. Artists now have this amazing opportunity to scroll through thousands of examples of each other’s work online, and these regular ‘art-consuming sessions’ help me subconsciously absorb new tricks, techniques, and ideas to bring into my work.

What kind of world do you want to depict through your illustrations?

It’s a sincere, kind and colorful place where honesty and humor are the biggest virtues. Everyone is free to be whoever they want in this world, because anything is possible. It’s diverse, fun, carefree and a little bit naive. I think these are things we’re missing sometimes in the real world.

Which would you say are the best three works in your portfolio?

I put my heart and soul into each and every work I make, so it’s hard to name three I like best — it feels a bit like saying which of your children is your favorite. But yes, sure, there are some that occupy a particularly important place for one reason or another.

First I would choose a series of about 70 illustrations that I made for a promo video in 2018. The whole thing took two months of work, and there were times I thought it would never be finished — that it was an impossible, unattainable task. But I never gave up, and so the result reminds me that determination is a key ingredient in the creative process.

The next one I’d go for would be a sort of ‘audience choice’ — the work of mine most liked by my fans on Dribble. Obviously, I wouldn’t choose it if I didn’t like it too, and I really do. It came out of a flash of inspiration — I was just sketching, without much of any idea in my head, when it suddenly came to me, like being visited by a muse. I love it when this happens, because it feels so pure and genuine. I think that comes across, too, which is what makes works made in this way more popular than ones the artist has had to ‘grind out’.

Last of all, this work deserves to be here not because it’s the best, but because it was a milestone: the first piece I made on my iPad right after I got it, and also my first work to be featured by Dribbble on their social media. It was also my first shot on Dribbble to get a lot of attention — and even though likes aren’t everything, it does mean a lot to be recognised and appreciated.

What’s the weirdest brief you’ve ever been given?

I was once asked to put the poo emoji on a pair of white shoes. This was a long time ago, for a little designer clothing boutique — but I still remember how funny I found the request.

How do you get ideas for your illustrations?

They come to me from virtually everywhere, from a trip to the shops to watching a movie. Usually how it goes is that I see something that excites or makes an impression on me, and I want to capture that emotion by putting it into a new illustration. And of course I often get inspired by other artists’ work, too — sometimes even using them as references. But of course, as I move forward and bring in different thoughts and influences, I eventually get to a result that’s very different from that initial source of inspiration.

The work below, for example, was inspired by the work of Brandon Land. When I started it I was coming towards the end of my working day, with just 40 minutes to go before I downed tools for the evening. But I got inspired and started drawing. First I sketched a rollerblading girl, then added a skateboarder. The next morning, to balance the composition, I added a guy playing basketball. This is another work that I made for no other reason than that I was inspired; maybe that’s why people seem to like it so much.

Which visual resources do you most turn to for inspiration?

Tumblr, Pinterest and Dribble are the best sources to my mind. There are also a couple of books that I’ve found really inspiring and motivating: Point and Line to Plane by Wassily Kandinsky and The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams.

Who are your top three influences as an illustrator?

Robert Crumb, for his amazing, revolutionary, LSD-influenced comics; Bill Plympton for his mind-blowingly eccentric plasticine-like style of animation; Keith Haring for his love of freedom.

Do you have any advice for someone who wants to become a full-time artist?

Practice, practice, and practice some more. The excuses you have for why you’re not moving forward might be reasonable, but you need to forget them: whether you don’t have enough materials, or the right skills, or your computer is old and slow, you have to just be creative and find a way around. Start small, never stop, and with enough diligence you’ll grow into an artist people will take seriously.

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Foreword: The Birth of the Artist

When I was little I used to draw on anything I could get my hands on — and if all that came to hand was my leg, I’d get down to business without a moment’s hesitation, transforming inch after inch of skin with the contents of my imagination.

But technology was on the march, and those days weren’t to last long: by the time I was a teenager my family had its first computer, and with this came a new canvas for my creative endeavours.

From the first it was my darling Maman who stood at the vanguard of our digital train: she was a web designer at the time, and taught me the basics of digital art. Perhaps the greatest gift she gave me early on was to get me on the fast track to learning about raster graphic editors. Back then it was all about Painter 7 — and from there I began, one small step at a time, to climb the mountain that is Photoshop.

But the means of producing the image were only the half of it, of course: alongside all this, I had become bewitched with the idea of writing my own fairytale. Creatively, that’s where things really began to take off. (I still don’t quite believe that I will ever finish a story of my own, though I have had the pleasure of illustrating one for a book, Little Trailblazers, that was published earlier this year and is being sold in aid of UNICEF. It’s a project I’m incredibly proud of.)

Always aware that art cannot do without its corresponding science, Mama soon informed me that I would be more successful if I were to perform upon my pencil drawings some mysterious manipulations. The word that hung always from her lips was ‘vector’ — but for now, for me, its meaning was obscure.

It turned out there was no problem with the word itself: I could see through it quite clearly to the concept behind — but that concept baffled me. Bafflement was not a state that I took kindly to.

There seemed to be no end in sight for my puzzlement at vector graphics, until one day I started work at a gaming company, and it stopped mattering — my tasks were now wall-to-wall raster. Soon, though, the repetitive daily slog of photoshop and stupid advertisement banners began to feel as though it were killing off my brain cells. Hemmed in by boredom, I began once again to pray for a new challenge.

Angels come in the strangest guises, and mine arrived dressed as my friend Turischev Sasha, a talented designer who had not long before begun setting up his own studio. Soon, bit by bit, the darkness seeped out of my creative soul, and a year later I joined Zajno — as the studio had been named — as a digital artist and illustrator.

How not to lose your sound

My biggest obstacle had long been my lack of understanding of how to transfer all the sincerity and naturalness of my pencil sketches into what seemed like the chokingly narrow confines of vector graphics. Later, I would learn that the problem was mainly down to my inexperience — but for now, they seemed to render everything pretty much lifeless. Soon, though, with the guidance of my new colleagues, I had learned that like any technique, vectors are only containers for your ideas. All I had to do was learn how to shape those containers around the ideas I wished them to carry.

This did, however, all require a few mental and psychological gymnastics. As one part of my brain had contorted itself through the process of discovering how to move curves, another part had fallen asleep. Now it was time to reawaken it — and to teach it how this new language of curves and points might be used to stir hearts.

The secret was to lie in a relentless study of the world around me — and the singling out of particular details. It is the details that make your story interesting; make it different from all the others. Only an unstinting analysis of everything around you can lead to an appreciation of the simple logic that underlies all phenomena. Once such observations have been achieved, they only need to be transferred — with great care, so as to retain their clarity — to the necessary plane.

Children are confronted with a world about which they know they know nothing, and so, without thinking too much, they accept it. As designers, we must in some part return to this childlike gaze, but combine it with what we’ve learned — our designers’ superpower. We must notice things, consciously taking in geometry, pattern, texture, which are God’s hidden blueprints, only revealing themselves to those who seek them out. Having beheld this hidden lore, all the riches of the world open themselves to you. You’ll observe the golden ratio in the unfurling frond of a young fern — then, casting your vision a little further up and away, you’ll notice the same magical spiral twisting its way through the Milky Way, binding micro to macro, proving that genius and simplicity are inseparable.

History

Though he became the greatest scientific mind of the Renaissance, Leonardo Da Vinci didn’t learn physics or anatomy on purpose. Though he was informally taught those two subjects (along with Latin and mathematics) at the start of his career, that wasn’t what made him a genius. It was rather his refusal to let a single detail of the world pass him by that led to his colossal contribution to human knowledge.

The lesson from Leonardo and from history is that the pursuit of understanding requires the largest possible library of samples: the acquisition, in other words, of experience. Then, once the raw stuff has been accumulated, one must become an experienced contemplator — drawing all the materials, the clay, the pixels together, to become one.

In ancient times, ‘creativity’ was a way of looking at the world, and did not have to involve producing anything new. Plato, for example, believed that the work of artists lay precisely in their ability to imitate — to enact a formula for harmony already written in the world around us, for those with eyes to look.

Towards detail

The personality of an artwork emerges from an accumulation of interconnected details. For the artist who must bring those details into being — by definition, before that final personality has yet emerged — this presents a difficult conundrum.

In my view, the key is never to try too hard to see the final result, but just to be sure that at each stage you’re always moving away from the general and towards the specific.

This game of association applies to both the technological and creative parts of the puzzle: at each stage, every block of meaning that you have already put in place must be unpacked, and its sub-blocks rearranged in an order that will only then have become apparent. This is the way in which an idea is gradually refined, its story teased out and made comprehensible.

Then, finally, the ultimate stage of this process that has been unfolding is to understand when it is fully unfurled, and at that moment to stop. To recognize the moment of completion. Mama sometimes tells me that “too much of a good thing is worse than nothing”. Call me a perfectionist if you like — but I think, with a bit of practice, it’s possible to get just the right amount.

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Do you like adventures? Here at Zajno we live for them. Yes, sometimes it’s hard to leave the cozy comfy office and dive into the crazy wild world out there. But leaving your comfort zone is the only way to feel alive again, isn’t it?

That’s why Zajno Crew recently embarked on a kayaking adventure which turned out to also be the best team-building activity you could wish for. In this article, we’ll share a list of things you’ll definitely need to have & do to turn a kayaking trip into an unforgettable team-building experience. And of course, we’ll illustrate each point with the pictures we took during our trip to show how it worked for us.

Essential must-haves:

1. Colleagues, kayaks & coaching

The obvious. It’d be quite hard to imagine a team-building kayaking trip without your lovely team, photogenic kayaks and kayaking equipment. Bear in mind that in rare cases kayaks turn out to be quite ferocious beasts, so make sure everyone gets instructed on how to tame them.

2. Swag

A stylish look is totally a must-have. So swag, baby, swag!

Wellies and sunglasses besides having some obvious practical benefits are the bread and butter of your style. A water pouch will add a touch of sophistication to your look, as well as some confidence ☝️But nothing beats a bucket hat.

3. Teamwork

Teamwork is actually the key ingredient on your trip. Fortunately, tandem kayaks involve teamwork per se, but you can also merge your boats, make complex formations and row forward together. Anchors away!

4. Getting in touch with mother nature

We tend to forget that we’re all a part of nature, the more we distance from it — the worse we feel. The detachment from nature might cause stress and anxiety making us feel lost, unhappy and out of balance. The solution is spending more time in nature and such a trip is a perfect opportunity. Contemplate the wonderful views around and let this beauty fill you from the inside.

5. A good mood

Good mood and the chilled atmosphere are no less important. The wilderness, raw nature and the spirit of freedom are all there to let your true self out. Enjoy yourselves! Be free and wild! If not now then when?

6. Art

If you manage to create the right atmosphere, it will spur creativity. Experiment! Sing, dance, draw. Make art installations! Then collaborate with your teammates and let them complete your masterpiece.

7. Pictures

Last but not least — don’t forget to take photos! This way you will not only save the memories of your thrilling adventure but also make your dear friends some new snazzy profile picture. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” 👼

So do take lots of pictures! And even pictures of taking pictures ;)

Ta-da! This is our recipe for a perfect team-building session. I’m sure if you follow the above-mentioned instructions your adventure will be as great as ours. Or maybe even better — who knows, maybe you have some tricks of yours to share!

All jokes aside, the main thing is for everyone to have fun and once again appreciate the awesome team they have and the wonderful world we are all lucky to live in.

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Asking ‘how important is it for a design studio to have a great website?’ is a bit like asking how important it is for a cat to have a shaft of sunshine to sprawl in: the answer is ‘very, obviously’. This is literally the thing we’re putting ourselves out there as being really great at doing for other people — so if we can’t do it for ourselves, who are we going to convince?

Back when we were starting out, and had a fair amount of time on our hands, we built ourselves what at the time we felt was a pretty cool site — and it seemed like other people agreed, because quite a few of our early clients came to us essentially asking for a riff on the same theme.

But just as the successful shoemaker apparently never has a pair of shoes to wear himself [note: I don’t actually know any shoemakers personally], design studios like ours — those fortunate enough to have gotten busy with a steady slew of projects — very often find their own online presence beginning to get neglected. And that’s pretty much what happened to us.

To be fair, the reasons for this situation coming about are not that hard to fathom: our time is mostly taken up with our clients’ projects, which have firm deadlines and clearly demand priority. Earlier on, we supposed there must be going to be a time when the pace of new things coming would slow, and then we’d be able to focus on our own stuff for a bit. But it didn’t happen. And so it dawned on us: if we wanted to do this, we had to stop making excuses and find a way.

When you spend your days building websites for other people, it can be difficult — and even traumatic — to take on board the fact that you need to completely revamp your own. But as we discovered, if you go through the process one step at a time, you’ll eventually come out the other end realising that there was nothing to be afraid of all along.

So, here are the five stages of grief that we went through to get to our new website.

1: Denial (is the place where we used to live)

“Not now…”
“We’ve got too many projects on at the moment…”

“Let’s come back to it in six months — maybe things’ll have quietened down by then…”

Sound familiar? You’re not alone. If you’re lucky enough to be a half-way successful young studio, then we hate to tell you, but you’re primed for denial. At first, it comes from a sense that the wave of incoming projects you’re riding can’t possibly last: you’ll surely have some slow months before long during which to catch up with your housekeeping.

But then, if that point takes a while coming, you might well just slip into complacency: before long you’ll probably find yourself asking, “if people want us this much as it is, why bother spending loads of time making ourselves a new site?”

If this all rings true, you’re already waist-deep in the stagnation trap. The good news — and the deeply-necessary warning — is that the sooner you start genuinely struggling (as opposed to just complaining), the better your chances are of escape. Your tastes may not have changed since you made your old website, but you can be sure that the world hasn’t stopped turning on its axis — and that means you need to keep moving as well, if you don’t want to be left behind.

In our case, the denial stage lasted for ages — two years, to be exact. It wasn’t that we didn’t know we needed a new website; no, we could see our site was becoming outdated, and we even designed not one but two replacements for it, and had our developers implement them. But in the end, we never released them — there was still always something more urgent to do.

We remained stuck, spinning in the whirlpool. And there was only one way to escape…

2: Anger (starts with ripping off the bandaid)

Complacency can be a warm and comforting place to live — but at the moment it gets punctured, and the cold winds of reality begin to blow in, you may find yourself experiencing a rich and ripening sensation of rage. But hunkering further down in search of shelter is a recipe for defeat. No — you need to confront your fate head-on. You need to rip off the bandaid.

My own particular way of doing this was to lock myself in a room where I knew nobody could bother me, interfere with me, or try to tell me that there were ‘more important things’ I needed to be working on. The goal of our website-to-be was to stand out among those sites that already stood out — and since that was what everyone was trying to do, it wasn’t going to be easy. And then there was the unholy trade-off between the essential elements of our own approach to style, and the trends at large in the world. We knew that bloodyminded intransigence wouldn’t get us anywhere — but at the same time, there was no good in letting go of what made us us.

My first concrete move was to create a series of mood boards — both to cement my own idea of what I was going for, and to let the rest of the studio know what was on my mind. My inspiration came from the best of what I saw around me: namely, grunge posters and book covers (for those that’ve seen the site, that’s where the big titles and overlapping elements come from). It was also clear for me from this stage that I wanted to push the bounds of what would be considered ‘normal’ — which is something central both to my own approach and to what we at Zajno stand for as a studio.

All told, the design process for the new site took me about two weeks of sweat and tears (technically no blood, but there may as well have been). Normally, sharing drafts with the team is a core part of the design process — but this time, I kept everything to myself so as to make sure I didn’t get blown off course. When I finally showed what was still a first draft to my colleagues, I was relieved and humbled to discover that they liked it. And so it was that apart from a few tweaks, the first draft became the final one.

(but after that comes the teamwork)

By this point, it was only the design part that was finished — a miniscule fraction of the wider job of creating a living, breathing website. Ripping off the bandaid had been a good start, but it was far from the whole story.

When I showed my team the design of our future website, and told them that this time we were actually going to do it and do it fast, they were as excited as I was. I need to say at this point that I have a chuffing amazing team — when I truly threw down the gauntlet of creating us a new site, they took up the challenge with relish. Frankly, if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t be writing this now.

Each team member contributed in their own unique way, often going way beyond the scope of their responsibilities to help move the project towards reality.

But of course, with a project like this, there had to be a structure, too. Early on, we got together for a whole-company meeting, where we made an exhaustive list of what we needed to do, plotted a timeline, divided up responsibilities, and finally fed everything into Asana. The deadlines we gave ourselves were absolutely skin-tight — a strategy that carried some risk, but which we thought was needed to keep us on our toes and ensure that this time, we saw the thing through to the end.

(and also some major photographic teamwork)

Gathering the photographic content for the new site was almost a separate project of its own — for the simple reason that we wanted to design and create our own photography from scratch. This was something new for us, but we knew it was an essential part of making the site truly our own. And we weren’t talking about one or two pictures: this project was to have a lot of photographic content.

The real challenge here wasn’t the actual shooting of the pictures, but the preparation. It had been easy enough for us to decide that each picture needed to be laden with meaning while at the same time not being too obvious — but deciding exactly how to put this into practice required detailed consideration. This was all the more true of the pictures showcasing our work — we needed images that would convey they idea, message, and vibe of each product we had created a website for.

The process of thinking up the ideas for these pictures became probably the biggest brainstorming sessions in the history of our company. Everyone was involved, and sessions went on for hours, sometimes long into the night, and produced dozens of wild and outlandish ideas en route to the ones we would eventually actually use. But the process was wonderful: every single member of the team had a chance to let forth all those bits of creativity that they mightn’t usually have an outlet for.

The result exceeded even our very elevated expectations. Not only were the final pictures absolutely sick — but we also had a really important bonding experience as a team in the process of creating them. The whole thing also brought us even closer to all the great projects we’ve worked on over the past few years.

3: Bargaining (without bargaining away our future)

By the time the design stage of creating the site was complete, with graphic and text content honed to perfection, our developers were chomping at the bit to get going with their work. Their process was every bit as creative as the design ideation and photo content creation stages: and accordingly, it began with a brainstorming session involving every member of the dev team (something that was then repeated with each new iteration).

Lots of bold ideas were born at those debates, including the “KEEP AWAY” button. Don’t press it. Really — just don’t! It’s fulfilling a very important design role right there — take it away, and the whole thing will fall apart. So NEVER PRESS IT!

And so, yes, not everything was easy — far from it. That’s where the bargaining came in: it turned out the big titles and the animations we’d wanted were too “heavy” in terms of website optimization, so they just wouldn’t work as planned. Were we then to have smaller titles? Or maybe simpler animations? Surely code must hold the answer to implementing even the craziest of designs. But of course, code does have limits.

4: Depression (and how it can cure itself)

After the creative high you’ll have been on for much of this process, there comes, if not a low, then at least a lull. Everything’s basically done — everything’s there — but it’s not quite as you’d imagined it. It’s understandable that anyone would feel a sense of despondency at this, but the good news is that all this is simply a signal that the next stage is at hand: it’s time to optimize.

We’d known from the start that to succeed, we’d need not only to apply all the front-end knowledge and skills we had, but also to learn more — much more. Every project involves learning new stuff, and we were used to being constantly pushed forward by our work — but this time we had a truly quintessential learning experience on our hands. The tough side of this was that there was a huge amount we had to assimilate in order to make what we’d made look and behave exactly as we’d envisioned.

For example: it turned out that HTML elements that are ‘heavy’ (in terms of layer composition) work way better when implemented with a WebGL canvas. That meant that in terms of efficiency and optimization, it made perfect sense to move these elements into a canvas, so that composition would remain static, and moving the content during the page scroll inside the canvas would ‘cost’ almost nothing. So we developed a script to port most of the HTML elements to a WebGL canvas — and it gave us a bunch of benefits:

• All elements can be set up in HTML+CSS, just like normal
• HTML elements aren’t visible in the desktop version, but they work on tablets and mobiles
• Not only can ‘heavy’ elements be moved ‘for free’, but they can even be embellished with some cool effects. This paved the way for the little easter egg we left for you — did you find it?

The bottom line, we’re very happy to say, is that we were finally able to code the whole design down to every detail, and to enrich it with complex animations and satisfying effects into the bargain. Our dreams came true, basically — and all because we let depression hit us, but then hit it back, harder. What’s more, we significantly leveled up our skills across the board, tamed Pixi.JS, and inducted ourselves further into the mysterious lore of optimization.

Acceptance

There is a delicate art to coming to terms with what has been, what is — and when to stop. The design stage of this project took just a couple of weeks; content creation lasted around a month; development and optimization another month more. We kept on dreaming up new ways to improve things — but at a certain point, we realised that we had to put our foot down and accept that now was the moment to let the thing we had created out in to the world.

And that was it — acceptance. The moment when the weight lifts, you step away from the miniscule (but previously world-overshadowing) things that are still not perfectly as you’d like them, and then are struck by the profound completeness of what stands before you. To speak simply for a moment: we’re damned proud of this site we’ve built for ourselves.

But there’s one last thing we need in order to live the dream we’ve been nurturing all these months. We’ve long nursed an intense longing to win website of the day on FWA, CSS Design Awards, or Awwwards. We’re now just one step away from this dizzying achievement, and it’s in your power to help us realize it — and to make 19 people unfathomably happy.

Click below to become the best person in the world.

UPD: The website became FWA of the Day 20 JUL 2019 and Website of the Day 12 JUL 2019 on CSS Design Awards.

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