My task was to create the visual identity for LA NOTE, a digital cultural publication focused on contemporary art, exhibitions, photography, and the emerging artistic scenes of Paris. The project was conceived as a subscription-based media platform with a clear editorial rhythm, where each issue is built not around the news cycle, but around a single theme, a single observation, or a single cultural shift. From the outset, the visual language was intended to convey not decoration, but focus, precision, and editorial rigor.

Initially, the client expected a more refined, distinctly French-style logo, with serifs and a recognizable Parisian cultural tone. I proposed a different approach and built the mark around dense typography, rhythm, and the discipline of print layout. This led to a logo in which the name merges with abstract lines of text, immediately setting the tone for the publication.

The next task was to reduce the mark without losing its character. The shortened version was created for situations where the full logo would be impossible or impractical to use: in limited space, at small sizes, and across more compact formats. At the same time, it was important to me that it would not feel like a simplified symbol, but would retain the core elements, structure, and rigor of the original solution. As a result, the reduced version works as an independent part of the system while preserving the character of the main mark.

After creating the mark, I translated this logic into the publication’s homepage. Here, the visual identity unfolds more fully and operates not only through the logo, but through the editorial structure itself. Article previews, the introductory block about the publication, a strong visual focal point, sections, and subscription are brought together into a single, coherent system. It was important to me that the homepage would not simply present LA NOTE, but immediately show how the publication is structured, what kinds of themes it engages with, and what reading rhythm it offers.

Title, concept, and visual identity of Denis Orlov’s novel.

This is a novel about a man who follows an elusive goal. His movement becomes a form of existence and a way not to disappear. He lives in a new environment where the familiar has lost its shape. The world around him loses density, turning into a network of reflections and surfaces. Reality feels like a program, and its glitch holds the memory of the past. He is not looking for an answer but for the sensation of purpose, like a snake reaching toward a point that cannot be caught.

Usually a designer joins the process when the idea is already complete and only the text needs to be shaped. Here it’s different. At an early stage, we work with the author to identify the story’s core, define its axis and title. From this foundation emerges the concept, which evolves into a visual language and image that set the direction for the novel.

The cover and visual imagery are not decoration. They are part of the statement, the same line that resonates in the text. The visual code makes meaning visible, giving the story form and a point of entry for the reader.

See also 

• Poster “THE ICON”
• Poster “THIS IS LOVE”

I’m trying to write notes using voice input.

I’m seeing it more clearly: capturing thoughts matters more than trying to make everything perfect from the start. Yes, editing and polishing improve the text, and the thoughts become cleaner and more crystallized. But fast capture matters for something else: it lets me remember later what I was even thinking about.

On walks, I used to record thoughts on a voice recorder and then transcribe them into a huge “wall of text”, sometimes even with timestamps. But it turned out to be inefficient: there’s too much text, and I don’t want to return to it. Publishing it feels even less appealing. Speech and text simply follow different rules.

Today there are tools that can quickly turn a voice note into clear, formatted text. I’m talking about artificial intelligence. And it’s important to clarify: in this mode, it’s not about “write it for me”, it’s about capture.

The point is that you need to capture not only the thought, but also the feeling. Without that, the text becomes cold and empty. If I come back to it in six months, it won’t hook me in any way. Intonation, voice, emotions, and stories are exactly what create the hook.

So my task, when I make notes like this, is simple: give the AI tool a command like “don’t rewrite”, don’t sterilize it, keep the human texture. Let the text remain mine, just a bit clearer.

This is my attempt to find a place for the machine in life: neither to push it away nor to hand it everything, but to use it as the right tool. Because I can spend an hour writing this same text, or I can capture it in a minute or two and move on. Especially when a thought arrives during a walk and it matters to save it immediately, together with the state.

There’s one more idea: if a note is “evergreen” and I want to keep working on it, I can (and should) update it. Read it quickly, bring it back into the chat, continue the dialogue, sharpen the wording, look at it from new angles, and the thought becomes alive and “evergreen”, not a one-time capture.

And the key focus here is this: the priority of my own speech and capturing thoughts without later “re-melting” them into something else. Yes, I have another mode where I work as a “text architect”, and AI helps me assemble and connect blocks faster. But in notes like these, what matters to me is capturing the state.

Sometimes it’s easier for me to capture the flow first than to construct a thought from scratch. We’re all different: for some it’s easier to write, for others it’s easier to talk to silence. I’m just looking for the best way to express my real self here and now.

I designed a logo for my personal media archive — Sirius.

I’ve started rereading Rework (the English edition is titled Rework: Change the Way You Work Forever), and the first chapter is called “Ignore the Real World.”

I realized how my attitude toward these kinds of bold concepts has changed:

1. Yes, great! Do whatever you want! They don’t know anything and don’t understand!
2. But the world became what we see now, so the rules of the game clearly work. A norm is a viable order.
3. (you are here) Sometimes play helps you get unstuck and change something (at least your point of view, to start with).

Now I look at it positively. Maybe I’ve simply come to see that rules and norms allow for mistakes. That doesn’t mean the mistaken thing will take root (probably not). But as a designer, I understand that experiments and play are necessary.

That’s what design thinking is. Not the version with sticky notes on a wall, but the one about understanding the balance between norms and errors.