Sulima Ekaterina
Multidisciplinary Designer & Illustrator.
Merging vibrant illustration with graphic design to create bold visual worlds. I transform unusual imagery and creatures into structured, design-friendly forms across print, identity, and sculpture.
My work always begins with a search for striking imagery and expressive references. I use these raw concepts as the foundation for every project, then I refine them into a more structured, design-ready form.
I am passionate about the power of illustration and am never afraid to integrate it into commercial design. Whether I am building a brand identity, designing a printed object, or creating a sculpture, I apply my distinct, vibrant style. As a creative partner, I am highly adaptable: I can take an art director’s existing concept and put my unique spin on it, or find a strong creative compromise.
Working across multiple media, I bridge the gap between graphics and illustration, ensuring that every project feels cohesive, playful, and alive.
Branding
Yavya is a conceptual brand of guardian lamps designed to protect people from shadow entities. It is an imaginary brand concept that reimagines the ancient idea of an amulet for the modern home. Instead of a simple light source, the lamp becomes a personal keeper of the space. It creates a boundary of safety, restoring confidence and transforming the home into a protected place where there is nothing to fear in the dark.
This project is a prime example of my playful approach to branding, built entirely on custom illustration and pattern design. I didn’t just design a logo; I created a visual world. The identity features unique and unusual designs of the shadow creatures themselves, which are integrated into the lamp’s patterns.
Asaphus is a visual identity for a fossil exhibition, built entirely around a bespoke typeface designed from scratch. Every single letter in the font not only maintains a unified visual style, but its form is directly inspired by different fossil shapes and textures.
Unlike my illustration-heavy projects, this case highlights my deep focus on typography and graphic systems. The project demonstrates how I construct a custom typeface and integrate it into a layout, allowing the type to dictate the graphic language. The result is a vibrant, eye-catching visual identity where the typography itself becomes the main graphic asset.
Physical Print Media
Bestiary of the Mind is a visual research project built upon the principle of an associative chain. Fifty historical illustrations of monsters and bizarre creatures from the 16th through 19th centuries are arranged in a cyclical sequence. Each image connects to the previous one through a single shared feature—be it a shape, a detail, a motif, or a gesture.
The book lacks a fixed first page. Its sheets are bound with metal rings and are rearrangeable, allowing the book to open from any point. This non-traditional physical form emphasizes the concept of an infinite circulation of forms and meanings—where one monster flows into another—and grants the viewer agency in determining where to enter this stream. An accompanying booklet provides archival captions and references, allowing the main physical object to remain a pure visual statement.
This project demonstrates my passion for deep visual research and my ability to rethink standard formats. Instead of a traditional bound book, I created a tactile, interactive art object. It highlights how I work with historical archives, extracting unusual imagery and structuring it into a modern, playful, and dynamic design system.
A functional calendar reimagined as a decorative art object. It features custom die-cuts that trace the organic silhouettes of various hanging plants, with a new botanical species introduced for every month to reflect the beauty and diversity of flora.
