Put yourself in our shoes. One day you’re working in a busy advertising agency in Ukraine’s capital city. The next you’re huddling in a basement as bombs destroy nearby buildings. Electricity, water and cell service are spotty, but the bills keep arriving. Your clients have shut their businesses and prospects are bleak. Anxiety is the first and last sensation of every day. Yet your creativity keeps blooming, bursting from your soul as a clear expression of every emotion within. Your creativity gives you hope. Gives you solace.
This site is a conduit between my fellow creatives in Ukraine and creatives around the world. It is a way for you to offer us compassionate help that maintains our dignity. Not with a handout, but with a hand up. Through this site, you can hire us for freelance creative work so we can pay our bills, sponsor us to design limited-series “creativi-tee shirts” with profits providing direct funds to rebuild the lives of Ukrainian citizens. We’re grateful to have work that is a respite from our nation’s desperate situation and allows us to pour our energy back into art. We find solace in expressing what’s on our minds and in our hearts: We believe creators will always triumph over destroyers.
Thank you for joining our cause.
Max Burtsev
Creative Director, Arriba!
Kyiv, Ukraine
No borders divide you from the creativity of Ukraine’s designers, illustrators, photographers and animators. Put us to work on your agency projects.
Hire Creatives
We can’t sit by and watch as the citizens of Ukraine experience invasion, destruction, death and uncertainty. But what can we do to help?
My friend Reuben asked if my advertising agency could send freelance work to a friend of his at a Ukrainian ad agency, Arriba! What seemed like a simple inquiry turned into an international partnership. I brainstormed with my ad agency team on how we could make this a bigger support system than just a few freelance jobs. We decided to hire Arriba! for t-shirt designs to sell here, providing them with immediate funds. We expanded the effort into a creative collective where ad agencies and other businesses around the world can also hire creative artists in Ukraine – either to design t-shirts for the general public to buy here, or to work on freelance creative projects. And now, through a non-profit agency in Ukraine, Volonterska, the profits and donations are being distributed directly to those in need.
It’s all in support of strengthening and rebuilding this beautiful, fiercely independent country.
It doesn’t take much imagination to visualize what the Ukrainian people are going through. And all it takes is your creativity and compassion to help.
Thank you for joining our cause.
Marcos Hernandez
Creative Director/Partner, RCCO/FPO
San Antonio, Texas, USA
About Volonterska
Non-profit Volonterska is one of the biggest volunteer organizations in Kharkiv, providing humanitarian aid to citizens through daily deliveries of supply packages to those in need.
The group's key focus is medicines and food - two major problem areas for the people of Kharkiv - delivered by a team of 60+ volunteer pharmacists, drivers, operations specialists and managers. Through the Volonterska website, the people of Kharkiv can request food, water, clothes, medicine, medical care, animal care and evacuation assistance. And the people of the world can donate funds to help.
All proceeds from t-shirt sales ordered through Creators vs Destroyers go directly to Volonterska.
FAQs
Who is designing the Creators vs Destroyers t-shirts?
Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics.
Are the designers paid for their work?
Ad agencies from around the world, led by RCCO in San Antonio, pay the Ukrainian graphic artists to create the t-shirt designs. The work is distributed to the artists by Arriba!, a leading advertising agency in Kyiv.
How many t-shirt designs are there?
There’s no limit to the number of individuals who can submit designs, nor the number of designs each individual can submit. A panel of art directors in Ukraine selects the designs for the site. Every design selected is applied to limited-series t-shirts. Once they’re sold out, we won’t reprint that design, making room for new ideas.
Where does the money for the t-shirts go?
Ad agencies from around the world, led by RCCO in San Antonio, pay the Ukrainian graphic artists to create the t-shirt designs. The work is distributed to the artists by Arriba!, a leading advertising agency in Kyiv.
How can I hire Ukrainian talent for my ad agency?
Simply submit your request through this site and a Ukrainian ad executive will reply. Creators vs Destroyers does not moderate, control or have any financial affiliation with those transactions.
Who's behind all this?
Please see Our Story for those details.