How Did It Begin?

It was hard to imagine that the LGBTQ+ community could easily work with the right-wing radicals on volunteer projects and the front line. But February 24th changed it all. We, Ukrainians, forgot about all our differences and got around one common idea — a free Ukraine so that everyone could live happily together. 

We've done plenty of campaigns with our close friends from KharkivPride, and now they have asked us to help them support Ukrainians during these uncertain times. Together we wanted to emphasize that unity we feel as a nation helps us be stronger.

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So is it only the enemy who unites us? We all have many common things and ideas — both Paul from Luhansk and Julia from Lviv. We wanted to show that much more united us besides the war.

Focus all Ukrainians on nice things, as positivity is a much stronger feeling than negativity and gives a deeper connection. What good does unite Ukrainians from the East to the West and from the North to the South? All those citizens from big and small cities of all ages? Something that connects us via common knowledge yet modern. History, culture, art, culinary, traditions, and customs seem to be that SOMETHING. But how can we connect it all? In a way that it becomes vivid, illustrative, and full of meaning? After a while, we got the idea that Vyshyvanka could be that symbol that represents our culture and history. Vyshyvankas from different regions have their own color palettes, patterns, and embroidery techniques, yet each represents Ukraine. It seems like modern Ukrainians are somewhat like Vyshyvankas — they live in different regions, eat various dishes, listen to unique music, and love in peculiar ways. But still, we are Ukrainians who believe in our victory and do everything we can to achieve it. So why don't we create an all-Ukrainian Vyshyvanka? In this case, there won't be regional colors but a rainbow! Well, from now on, the LGBTQ+ community does not use the rainbow as its symbol. From now on rainbow can unite all Ukrainian regions. We decided to revise this sacred Ukrainian symbol to remind everyone once again — the power of modern Ukrainians is that even though we are all different, we are united as never before.

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We have yet to create vyshyvanka itself because we wouldn't be able to make enough ones for all Ukrainians in Ukraine and abroad. Instead, we developed a visual code — an identity that everyone can use — add to a photo or embroider on their own vyshyvanka.

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Unity Identity

To create the identity, we took the Brodiv letters as a basis, a symbolic alphabet that allows us to encode different meanings in embroidery. Thus, embroiderers can write wishes, names, or secret love letters. There is a website on the Internet, that helps you make your ornament from a message you want to encode.

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We took the letters from the Brodiv writing to make up the name of our campaign United as Never Before, distorted them, highlighted certain elements, and created unique shapes. They are easy to combine or change colors for different media and purposes. This, again, works with the idea of uniting different things and people.

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Encrypted messages are good, but what if you need to write in a way that everyone can understand? For this occasion, the designers developed the font of Ukrainian letters, which resembles embroidery — not pixels, but embroidery. Pay attention to how the "crosses" are arranged — they are connected by sides and not by corners which is a distinctive difference between pixel art and embroidery.

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Also, the font has two versions of some letters (uppercase and lowercase) to emphasize the difference, which is united by something greater. 

You can find the full Vysyvanka font following the link.

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Finally, designers created a logo with the encrypted United as Never Before.

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Off to the Streets

We also needed to add more of a visual form to tell this idea to all Ukrainians — clearly showing that we are all different. Still, the borsch is Ukrainian and tasty both in Donetsk and Lviv. Even thou the borsch from Donetsk might be made with smoked ribs, and in Lviv, they do it with beans and smoked pears, there is still one truth:

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Our dishes might be different, but they are Ukrainian

So our designers created four types of prints with campaign identity: cities, food, music, and love — which might be different for many, but they have one similar thing — Ukraine.

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Red is love, whereas black is grief.

And as a final touch, we created a video and manifest that states the idea in a poetic form. For a base, we used the famous Kvitka Cisyk Ukrainian song "Two Colors," which describes the meaning of Vyshyvanka.

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The video includes all the images that we mention in the manifesto. Everything unites us during this fight with the russians. More than that, it pictures love as love for the country, each other, people, and the nation is our common motivation during this war.

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The Life After

Besides, this manifesto is the Kharkiv Pride hymn that happened on September 25th in Kharkiv. Activists and people around the globe read this manifesto for their cameras and sent it to the Kharkiv Pride. So it is a national unity manifesto indeed.

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Remember, we are all Ukrainians regardless of the borsch we eat, which Serduchka album we listen to, and who we love.

Agency: Arriba! Strategic Creative Agency
Production: Arriba! Production & Mel Production

Max Burtsev — Сreative Director;
Olya Burtseva — Account Director;
Lera Tkachenko — Account Manager;
Oleg Mysiagin, Nikita Barkov, Olya Pomeranska — Strategists;
Olya Shevchuk, Dasha Starko, Alina Gerasimchuk — Copywriters;
Yevhen Babanin — Designer.

Production — MEL Production

Evetta Lukash — Producer;
Lada Sabova — Director;
Yaroslav Lukash — Editing Director;
Paul Itkin — Cleanup;
Mykhailo Solodovnikov — 2D Animation;
Backspace — Music;
Vasyl Yevtushenko, «4Ears Sound Production» — Mixing & Sound-design.