Designing with warmth A selection of projects exploring communication design, typography, and illustration — where every detail matters.My name is Alyona, and I work under the pseudonym Raspberry Mermaid. I work across graphic design, typography, and illustration, combining a love for kind, thoughtful design with meticulous attention to detail. I value textures, fine strokes, and small nuances that make a visual idea feel alive and truly original. I love exploring visual stories, finding a friendly dialogue between hand-drawn elements, expressive letterforms, and a genuine authorial voice.

Context: My creative journey began in early childhood — I drew constantly with paints, pencils, and markers. In the third grade, I enrolled in art school and spent nearly seven to eight years there. That was where I truly fell in love with art and craft, learned so much, and, thanks to my teachers, created a series of illustrations that helped me get into HSE.Concept: These illustrations were based on Mariam Petrosyan’s novel «The House in Which…». I created three visual stories — for Makedonsky, the Sphinx, and Tabaki — each revealing its character through color. Makedonsky is closed off and lonely, and his world is strictly black and white: there are no colors in his life, only the quiet isolation of someone who has learned to survive on his own. The Sphinx is mysterious and silent, yet warm at heart and a devoted friend — someone who rarely speaks but whose presence feels like shelter; his palette is the green of grass and the orange glow of light, calm yet alive. Tabaki is a talker, a collector, a lover of fairy tales and stories, of laughter and jokes — the most positive character of all; his palette bursts with every color of the rainbow.

Context: I took a comics course with Asya Gasymova. Although I study design, I love to draw. It was important for me to work in traditional media and step away from digital for a while.Concept: The concept is a reimagining of Charles Perrault’s fairy tale «Riquet with the Tuft» — a story about a man who marries the best woman on earth, set in the modern world where there is no magic, and all the magic is replaced by the depth of human relationships. The characters find each other not by fate, but by bonding soul to soul — through the human qualities they see and value in one another. They become the perfect pair for each other, where beauty and intelligence are revealed not as innate gifts, but as the result of mutual acceptance. They find happiness not by fixing flaws, but through acceptance and the absence of judgment — seeing each other truly and choosing to stay, they turn their vulnerabilities into strength and find the wholeness that makes their union perfect without any magic.

Context: In my third year, I was drawing quite actively, so there was also this bright and detailed board game project. It was my first experience of this kind, and I wanted to create something uncharacteristic for me, so I drew undead creatures — but to avoid scaring anyone, I set myself the task of creating a friendly necropolis with friendly monsters.Concept: The Power of the Bone Throne — a competitive board game (a race-style quest) based on the classic «Big Board Game» by GaGa Games, where players, in the roles of powerful necromancers, fight for the right to lead the Kingdom of the Dead, racing to be the first to reach the Citadel of Darkness. On their way to the Throne, they face battles, traps, magical anomalies, and random events. The one who reaches the finish line becomes the ruler, gaining control over the entire undead army and securing an unconditional victory in the struggle for power.