The site www.poskot.net is a nice mirror for some influences that are definitely worth to be mentioned.

As we can tell form the header the Ukraine is part of the Web 2.0 world, and shaded logos and the famous black gloss plate are inevitable parts of this phase.

Concerning the graphic artworks featured here the basic influences are minimal styles, Helvetica, the sixties, the seventies with their magic ornaments and some "John Maeda styles" www.maedastudio.com .

What's Russian here? First you will notice that the words, though written in the Latin alphabet are not part of any official language. This stuff is called "translit", the way to write Russian without using Cyrillic letters. To make this special cultural code more secret, it is furthermore a special slang called "mat" (/from the Russian word for mother). It's a language that is famous for the extreme amount of curse words included. (mainly explicit sexual topics)

The next nice feature are trademarks from the Soviet past which are recycled in contemporary subjects, like a "fake Louis Vuitton bag" carrying the symbols of the famous Russian "33 cows" milk brand and the Poskot logo instead of the LV initials.

The general conclusion can very well reflect what is currently happening in Russian culture. It's a trend back to any positive values from the past, from the "good old times" before the iron curtain came down and western capitalism rolled over the country, blasting away anything that was considered to be "old fashioned" or associated with communism. Now old brands reappear on the market and "made in Russia" starts to stand for quality and positive traditions. The artworks on the featured site might look like a caricature of pop-art, but in my opinion they are a beautiful illustration of this cultural turn. Post-Soviet Countries are finding their own style, on one hand based on their own history, on the other hand on extremes like the culture shock the West had brought in the early 90ies.

jmw2008