Obys is a Creative design agency based in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Its main focus is UI/UX Design, Graphic Design, UI Animation, and Development. We had the opportunity to speak with Viacheslav Olianishyn, the Co-founder and Art Director at Obys who shared information on the company’s beginnings, its mission, and how he envisions the future of the industry.
Please present Obys Agency to our audience.
Obys agency is a Ukraine-based creative design agency. Two times Studio of the Year by CSS Design Awards and Studio of the Year Users’ Choice by Awwwards. We are focused on creative UI/UX, branding, and interaction design.
Please describe the story behind the company: What sparked the idea, and how has it evolved so far?
6-7 years ago the idea of Obys was born, for several years we nurtured this idea, dreamed. And almost 4 years ago we began to turn this idea into reality. From the very beginning, we clearly understood what we wanted to do and that we did not want to just sell hours of our work and make another site “like Apple”. We wanted to make a design that would not only solve problems but also evoke emotions. At this point, we have already formed a good core team with first-class designers, an art director, and a manager. This became our starting point.
Since then, our entire core team has been in place, and we have acquired new services, new design quality, large international clients (CNN, Porsche, Samsung), and awards such as Awwwards, CSSDA, FWA, The Webby Nominee, Communication Arts, The Very Best of and… and became Studio of The Year by CSSDA even two years in a row.
What services do you offer?
We can offer our clients a quite wide range of design services. From logo and identity design (fun fact: you’ll find even more awards for the graphic design than for UI/UX on our Behance profile) to creative UI/UX design (including UI animation, motion design, and even simple 3D design) and web development (mostly high-quality front-end development but we do back-end too).
Some part of our team has a graphic design background. And web design is just a part of graphic design for us. Graphic design + UX. That’s why you can find references in our work to editorial design. That helps us to make unique web experiences every time we create a new project.
What is the mission of the Obys Agency?
So, from our previous answers, you can see that we truly believe that emotional design, is outstanding and unique (these characteristics are important for us). We want to do it with the implementation of new technologies, and want to see more and more projects using this approach to design. You can see it both in our clients’ projects and in our side projects. For example, our series of educational projects or our project dedicated to the 30th anniversary of Ukraine. Our approach is to do cool things, both for ourselves and for our clients. Then both the client and the team are always charged and satisfied with the result.
Who are your typical customers, and what do you think is the main challenge that your product solves for them?
We work with very different industries. From large developers in Canada to fine art photographers from New York. From a web app for choosing the right advertising plan for a well-known newspaper to an NFT project or website for Porsche Taycan. We are confident that it is possible to make an innovative product for both the medical field and metal fences. For us the most important thing is the client’s willingness to do something new, striving to become number 1 in his niche. We offer him help from the side of design and conveying the right emotions.
How do you envision the future of your industry?
You know, it’s hard to talk about the future when there is a war in our country. Our city is being bombed every day. The future of a huge country in the center of Europe is in question. But we will try to find the answer:
Designers will be replaced by constructors, neural networks, and artificial intelligence. All simple operations will be replaced by a computer. For example, to assemble a typical prototype, or to make a simple website according to all generally accepted rules. But the computer will not be able to come up with ideas and create concepts soon. That’s why we feel safe.
AR technologies and Metaverses are becoming more and more popular, we need to be flexible and quickly adapt to new technologies and the world that is changing every day. The requirements for a designer are also changing if earlier it was enough for you to have specialized education and knowledge of the software. Now you have to not only make a design, but also be able to assemble a disassembly prototype, come up with and implement animation, and even make 3D.
