The making of the People’s Unity Day poster (2014)

November is approaching, bringing with it the holiday that we’d rather someone else drew a poster for. But no, everyone else is busy. Deciding to take the trodden path first: find some non-obligatory activity that everyone fulfills in a customary way. Or a place where everyone behaves the same with no regard for the class division. Or something else that unites us as a nation.

Art director: I remember the joke, but it doesn’t work on a poster.

Maybe, Pushkin eating an apple under a birch tree?

Art director: And where is the unity here?

In the spiritual clamps, of course. All right, let’s move on. The unity of form and content. Congruence. Identity. Yeaah. Trying to understand the idea behind the holiday. Just like in the previous years, it’s not quite clear what exactly we should be celebrating.

Eureka! We have before us a unique recursive holiday. The people are united in their incomprehension of the idea of people’s unity.

Art director: It’s a fine image, but unity is not associated with recursion. Maybe, draw a fork with a bunch of pelmeni stuck together?

We can of course, but it wouldn’t look nice. How about something Chinese? From the future where we were enslaved by the Chinese. The name of the holiday seems fitting. Maybe, a Terracotta Army of Matryoshka dolls?

Art director: China is not quite fitting here. Maybe, dozens of hands holding vodka glasses?

Nope. Let’s ask our Muse.

Chief editor: Switching to winter time. Very relevant right now.

That’s true, everyone’s unhappy about this one. People with clocks instead of heads? Clockwork people? Hordes of zombies going to work? Winter is coming? Simply turning the clock an hour back?

Art director: Totally confusing.

Damn it! Well, let’s combine the classics.

Art director: Can be.

Finally. Typesetting.