Seeing with fresh eyes: Shevchenko for a modern reader is a collection of essays written by Ukrainian literary scholar Volodymyr Dibrova. He analyses Shevchenko's literature innovations in the context of his time and also give some comparison to European literature of that period.
Cover
Process
The portrait of Shevchenko is the most memorable image in Ukraine. I remember that we had his framed portrait hanged over the blackboard in nearly every classroom at my school. Also, Taras Shevchenko is the most known Ukrainian poet. He is like Saint and his poems you learn by heart during your school years. No surprises that such sacralisation leads to the creation of an unrealistic image and very soon you find yourself in the place where you don't understand why everyone praises these poems, what's so cool about them? Fortunately, in this book, Volodymyr Dibrova brings new life to Shevchenko's stereotypical image and gives the reader a lot of contexts which helps to understand the depth of the poet's heritage.
I also wanted to bring Shevchenko back to his readers using a modern visual language. However, you can't talk about Shevchenko without his image. His mustache, glance, and profile are like a genetic code and it would be unwise not to use it at all, but I didn't want to take his well-known self-portraits due to the school time memories. So I started re-drawing it myself and it was pretty fun, because sometimes the variants were hilarious. After over 100 attempts I realized that I need to focus on Shevchenko as if his face was a logo — maximum simplicity in lines, no pretty details, just bold graphics. And it worked that way!
I also wanted to bring Shevchenko back to his readers using a modern visual language. However, you can't talk about Shevchenko without his image. His mustache, glance, and profile are like a genetic code and it would be unwise not to use it at all, but I didn't want to take his well-known self-portraits due to the school time memories. So I started re-drawing it myself and it was pretty fun, because sometimes the variants were hilarious. After over 100 attempts I realized that I need to focus on Shevchenko as if his face was a logo — maximum simplicity in lines, no pretty details, just bold graphics. And it worked that way!
Final layout
The title had to be as bold as the image, but I needed more contrast here. It was experimental, but I've decided to use a foil stamping and I absolutely adore the result.
Illustration
Idea development
My main goal here was to make illustrations look unfinished. I wanted readers to re-invent their own Shevchenko by completing the drawings in their heads or using pen/pencil.
When I was a kid, I liked to connect dotted pictures.
A blurred image becomes clear through drawing lines — I wanted the same impression for this book.
My concept was to use 2 colors in the illustrations: black and blue Pantone. It is very inconvenient that black is actually not a really black if it is printed with only one paint (C0 M0 Y0 K100), but here I decided to use that approach and make hidden perks: a part of the image will appear only in a printed version where you will see the difference between two shades.
Final illustrations
Printed
Result
Credits:
Author: Volodymyr Dibrova
Illustration & cover concept: Mari Kinovych
Layout design: Mykola Kovalchuk, Dariia Matsola
Project coordinator: Mariia Shuvalova
Executive editor: Iryna Bilotserkovska
Advisor: Oleksandr Boron
Editor & proofreader: Maryna Okhrimenko
Illustration & cover concept: Mari Kinovych
Layout design: Mykola Kovalchuk, Dariia Matsola
Project coordinator: Mariia Shuvalova
Executive editor: Iryna Bilotserkovska
Advisor: Oleksandr Boron
Editor & proofreader: Maryna Okhrimenko
Published by Bilka Publishing House
Kyiv, Ukraine
2021
