Once upon a time, I was struck by an incident abroad where a tourist in a restaurant placed his order in Russian. When it became apparent that the waiter didn’t understand, the tourist continued speaking Russian, but much louder. Today, that incident comes in handy for this intro because the most important aspect of creating any nationwide communication is not to be that kind of tourist. 0/10, not recommended.

I’d prefer not to start with a recap that most probably already know, but I’ll start anyway. Here’s a brief summary:

This year, at provid, we had the honor (and it truly is an honor) to develop the identity for Ukraine’s Independence Day, and not just any, but a jubilee one.

There were only a few constraints, but in reality—there were none.

The identity was meant to be “open,” meaning friendly for anyone to use freely and integrate anywhere.

Simultaneously, it had to be contemporary and reference understandable cultural codes.

And most importantly—understandable to Ukrainians of all ages, cultural backgrounds, tastes, and places of residence.

This is one of those rare cases where you can say about the result of our creative endeavors: “Well, you’ve seen it,” even without considering the professional audience of this media.

Well, you’ve seen it.

The image of the flower is familiar to literally everyone, and its simple form can fit anywhere. Moreover, flowers are traditionally associated with Ukraine and woven into our ornamentation, symbolism, and semantics. It didn’t go without ideological groundwork: the flower aptly reveals our vision of Ukraine—a state as a living entity, a unified whole composed of such different “petals” that continue to grow and develop.

This is a perfect opportunity to insert a video about the project because we really like it, and the number of subscribers on our channel suggests that the video might have passed by most of you.

The narrower and more defined the audience, the easier it is to communicate. You know exactly what your friends watched, what makes them laugh, what they like, because you essentially have the same context for everyone. It’s harder with grandma because while you undoubtedly love her, you don’t talk to her as often and don’t know the last TV series she watched, or if she watches anything other than the news. And in a household chat, it’s a complete mix, because everyone there lives their own full life, filled with ups, downs, and painful life triggers.

Existing in the world beyond our personal sphere of communication, interests, and cultural codes requires choosing an adequate form of communication if we really want to say something to others. Otherwise, they just won’t understand us, or they’ll understand us incorrectly, which is often worse.

Creativity—is such a form. A form that must take context into account to achieve its goal.

That’s why, of all creative communication projects, national ones are perhaps the most challenging. Try finding points of intersection for citizens of the entire country when there’s no common view even on the obvious. Define “obvious” yourself—up to your discretion.

Here’s what I mean.

All this, and even more, applies to the identity of Independence Day, the most national holiday of Ukraine.

Just imagine such a group chat (on Viber) with your friends, your parents and all relatives, and even users of all group chats in towns across our country if such chats existed.

A little insider: before settling on the final idea, we went through countless different concepts. Countless forms of possible identity. And we liked each one. But then we remembered the purpose, considered the context—and looked further. And when we worked on the flower, at every stage we asked ourselves—whether it’s not too simple a solution, and what this work would give to the world of design. Honestly, we’re human beings too and we ponder eternity here too.

However, the purpose of this identity was not to give something to the world of design. As a communication tool, it was meant to give something—to people. Because this time, the dialogue was with them, not with the world design community.

Moreover, it seems we underestimate simplicity, often mistaking it for superficiality or primitiveness, just as we mistake communication for personal artistic expression.

The same goes for any other communication task.

It’s easier and more interesting for us to do what we like and understand, what’s familiar to us and to those like us. This is considered a creative victory—teaching the audience our context, proving the correctness of our form.

But adequate communication takes both sides into account. And sometimes, to achieve the goal, it’s necessary to speak not louder, but in a common language.

Understanding this doesn’t make us worse creators. It can make us better professionals.