Artist Profile: Meet Alex Krugli

February 11, 2022

Alex Krugli is an illustrator and vector artist originally from Minsk, Belarus and currently working in Serbia. His playful illustrations are full of vibrant colors and they have become some of the most beloved BetterCo. puzzles. Alex is the artist behind Remember the 90's and Feeling Groovy. He agreed to answer a few questions for us and talked about his journey as an artist. Enjoy!

Can you tell me a little about how you got into illustration and developed your style?

Since the first school grade I had a passion to drawing, sketching and colouring something in my notebooks. At high school and university it was mostly caricatures of teachers and classmates :) But I have never even thought about formal education in arts or design because in our post-USSR society it was strongly believed that “artist/illustrator is not a real job”. Everything I know is self-taught and learned by doing.

I started working in illustration field in 2015 when I’ve got a remote position of a junior illustrator in microstock Moscow studio. Since that time, I've tried many illustrator paths. I have been developing my own microstock accounts on Creative Market, Adobe Stock and other platforms. I worked on corporate illustrations as in-house illustrator at Arabic Media Holding, collaborated with Prague game studio being a part of illustrators team and working on mobile colouring game. Every experience brought something new to my art style but I am still in process of developing it. Sometimes I am passionate about creating colourful geometric illustrations. At other time I feel tired of colour and details, prefer to work on minimalist line scenes for mobile applications.

What is the process like for creating a new design?

First, it goes an exploration stage when I gather references and inspiration on Pinterest, Behance, etc. Of course, I always take a look how are similar projects done by other professionals. For some specific projects I do an additional research on history, culture, etc. Then we discuss possible illustration variants and ideas with client and after that goes sketching part. Sometimes I sketch in my notebook but from recent times I do it mostly in Procreate. After getting client's approval I start working in Illustrator at final version.

Alex Krugli BetterCo. Illustrator in Serbia

What inspires you to create?

Most of all, Earth cultural and natural diversity. I love to travel and discover new places. That influence is behind most of my best artworks. The places I’ve visited during my travels, landscapes and cities which I want to see some day.

Fairytales, magic stories and movies that I’ve read and seen.

One more large source of inspiration is cool stuff made by other illustrators and designers.

You are working on a new piece for BetterCo. How is it different from the previous designs you have done for us?

I am working on undersea puzzle design for BetterCo and this time I've changed style a bit by adding some raster textures, lighting effects and gradients. Previous designs were more geometric and closer to flat style, comparing to this one.