Task

Data analysts and a team of linguists of Yandex.Maps studied the names of Russian cities and villages. They looked for the most common, unusual and simply funny names, and also found out what they are connected with. Yandex.Maps asked us to creatie 3 illustrations for the main federal part of the study and 15 illustrations for key regions in order to present the project in a unique style.

In order to attract the attention on social media, the pictures had to be bright and creative. Sonia Korshenboim was chosen from several illustrators whose style was appropriate after a test task. We started a project with her, and over the next two weeks she drew 18 illustrations.

Working process

The work schedule was very tight, the project turned into a drawing marathon for the illustrator. But there were definitely no problems with the search for ideas: “The names of the villages were really funny, so the image ideas appeared on their own; I tried to imagine how they would look if they were characters. Perhaps my favorites are «Demons»,” says Sonya.

Unexpected difficulties appeared during the rendering process of 15 images for the regions. Initially, we wanted to depict them as coats of arms, but some regions have penalties for incorrectly depicting regional coats of arms. We decided that we would change the shape of the shield to a circle, position it against a bright background-pattern, and call these illustrations the regional logos. “It’s a pity that we didn’t manage to implement the idea with comic coats of arms, but I’m still satisfied with the result in the given conditions,” the artist says.

Result

We managed to meet the deadlines and present the project with minimal edits, and the response on social media exceeded our expectations. The producer of the project Nastya Belan shares her impressions: “The project turned out to be very cool! This is confirmed by the crazy number of reposts. I'm sure this is largely due to the cool, colorful illustrations"