The history of the "Russian bear" poster

In late February 2022, I sat with my iPad on my knee, pondering an illustration for the latest issue  of iMagazine . Most of the issue was to be devoted to the recent events in Ukraine, my thoughts drifting from a dove, to a bomb falling, to a tank with a flower in its barrel. These are the most common associations we have when we think of war in the media. Usually, iMagazine's illustrations are funny, lighthearted, but now things have gotten serious.

A good illustration/poster is about looking at the topic from a different perspective, cleverly connecting the dots, or, as you could also call it - reading between the lines.

So I look at the Ukrainian flag, two colored stripes, blue and yellow. Horizontally, they look like... two Lego blocks, because yellow and blue happen to be their colors.

Objects sometimes have permanent associations in our consciousness. For example, storing information still involves a floppy disk icon, at least for my generation. A telephone? Definitely with a dial and receiver, preferably red, etc.

But let's get back to that Lego brick... standing on a Lego brick. It's become ingrained in our pop culture, practically synonymous with a bad decision, a bad idea. I'm sure it's happened to you too. An unfortunate step and nerve-wracking pain paralyze the body. I might be exaggerating a bit with that description, but you get the idea.

This block is so tough, nothing moves it, even if we jump on it! It's tiny, but stepping on it can hurt quite a bit. Hard as... Ukraine!

And then it hit me!

This is it! I thought.

I started sketching a giant foot stepping on a block, and what I ended up with was some kind of werewolf, which made no sense. It was too literal. Then Godzilla appeared, but he's a monster from Japan. Godzilla slowly transformed into a bear, the red color emphasizing his Russian origins, and the circle of associations closed.

That's how " Russian Bear " was born. When I first showed it on Facebook, I already knew it would be something special. Riding the wave of its popularity, I quickly came up with the idea of turning that popularity into real action. I came up with the idea of distributing it as a printable file for a nominal fee, like buying a coffee. Anyone can afford it, and the poster is cool.

Meanwhile, the poster became an internet hit, shared tens of thousands of times from Twitter to Reddit. It appeared on the front page of Greece's largest newspaper, was written about in Austria, featured on television, and became part of the permanent collection of the Hamburg Art Museum, not to mention numerous online posts and articles about the best creative activities related to the situation in Ukraine.

During the four days of selling the poster in the form of a digital file in my store, "teddy bear for ten" collected 34,000 zlotys for Ukraine (3,400 pieces).

On the fifth day, I decided to move the campaign to siepomaga.pl , where I could upload a file that would be made available to the donor. This gave the campaign even more momentum, and it was featured on TVN's "Szkło kontaktowe" program.

The campaign lasted from March 1 to May 31, 2022 and the total amount collected was: PLN 219,324.88