Oleh Bilyi

What is the work behind the projects of rebranding Ukrainian cities? How are state tenders for the purchase of design studio services held and on what principles do organizers choose participants? We invite you to find out about it from an interview with Oleh Bilyi – art director of White Studio Design and co-founder of the Agency for Tourism Initiatives.

How did your design journey begin?

It's an interesting story. Since childhood, my family has brought up in me an esthete, dreamer, artist. But at the time of entering the university, there were completely different values, and becoming a designer in 1999 was, to put it mildly, fantastic. After graduation, I worked for 4 years in my specialty, in the field of high-voltage energy, where I was engaged in paper tenders. Then I realized how much it did not suit me.

Once my director told me: “Oleh, you have a good creative vision, you take great photos. Maybe you should do some design?”. And asked to make a website for their company for a fee. I made a beautiful website with 3D models, which was considered to be something outrageous in 2008, and realized that I enjoyed doing it. So I went into design: I graduated with a second degree in design, created White Studio Design, and began to develop further in a creative direction.

What was your first city rebranding project?

I made my first project free of charge for my hometown of Kalush, 6 years ago. I was inspired by the project "I Love New York", which was created in the 1970s to popularize tourism in this city. I traveled to different Ukrainian cities, and everywhere I met inscriptions like "I love Stavysche", etc., which were just a copy of the New York project. This made me think that we don't need to imitate someone if we can create our own. Each city has its peculiarity, and it can also be advertised. For example, while doing a project for Kalush, I learned that the Magdeburg Law (one of the most famous systems of city law) operated on its territory, and there was a foundry of bells. It is an industrial city, but it also has an interesting history.

Oleh Bilyi

Examples of brand attributes of the city of Kalush

But the most significant project is Cherkashchyna. Then, for the first time in our practice, we touched on the history of Ukraine, showed the cossacks, and tried to do it in a stylish and modern way. Many Ukrainians do not know their history, so we try to present it interestingly, in a fresher form than it was in schools and universities.

Oleh Bilyi

Examples of brand Cherkashchyna attributes

How do you look for clients?

White Studio Design has never been engaged in a targeted search of clients. Word of mouth works well for us – clients exchange our contacts with each other. Plus, we host pages on Behance (a social media platform where designers and illustrators showcase their work) and other similar sites. It happens that clients find our works there, and immediately ask us to calculate the project.

As for the Agency for Tourism Initiatives, clients simply see our projects in action in cities. They invite us to seminars so that we share our experience, talk about the organization of work on branding the territory, what effect can be achieved in the end, and then they decide whether to work with us or not.

Sometimes we are called for pre-threshold purchases. And it also happens that a government organization wants to order services from us, but is obliged to hold a tender for this – then we compete with other participants. Usually, we go through the qualifying selection, since now we have the most experience.

Who works in your team?

Our team does not have a vertical structure, therefore, there is no director. There is simply a horizontal line where all employees are partners. Our client manager is responsible for the preparation of documents. In other cases, for example, if commercial orders come in, I conclude an agreement as a sole proprietor. As for accounting, today the reporting system for entrepreneurs is so simple that we can do it without the services of an accountant.

For different projects and different situations, a certain number of people are hired to complete the tasks. In preparing city projects, we, besides our manager, additionally use a strategy. Sometimes we invite additional designers with their style, as well as illustrators to create brand books or identity. We do not buy fonts from Western firms, but rather let our creative market grow by hiring local font artists. Often they create works on a level higher than Western ones, and it is very easy to contact them – they always help with pleasure.

Tell us about your work on large projects

Before starting any work, we always hold a seminar and a brand session for customers, where we stipulate the conditions and general structure of work, the scope of work, etc.

As for urban projects, we are additionally organizing a working group from the customer's side, which will also be constantly involved in the process of working on the project.

After that, we start working with the local community – a group of people who are directly involved in the creation of the project. Artists, historians, geographers – all of them can be useful and often find some interesting insights (for example, they come up with slogans). I especially remember the case when we worked on the Cherkashchyna project. The editorial office of the working group received a letter written on three sheets from an old woman from a deep village. She proposed her slogan and supported it with a description of what her region is famous for, and details that even historians did not remember. That's why I love working with the community.

In the end, we get a lot of interesting inside information and work with it as well. We start to create different ideas within the group, weed out the unnecessary and form a single professional solution. Why aren't we preparing several options? Once upon a time, we had such a practice. Over time, we realized that the more decisions you make, the more defocused the idea itself becomes, and often the customer begins to choose between what he wants and what he wants. Important elements are divided into several options, although in the right way they should all be in one.

Therefore, as a result, we present one logical and reasonable option. Sometimes we can additionally offer customers some bold or eccentric solution and immediately show how it will work.

We never do a super-complicated rebranding strategy, because they will not be able to implement it. Instead, we focus on injecting creativity into existing travel magnets. We also offer an additional year of project support from our specialists for a separate budget to help the city complete the rebranding strategy.

Oleh Bilyi

How do you prepare for city rebranding projects?

First of all, we make ethno-expeditions: we explore the city, visit its museums, and find tourist magnets that already exist. We conduct an audit of spiritual and material heritage. Sometimes the spiritual (for example, the history of a place) is stronger than the material (the lakes, forests, interesting locations), and we popularize it. It is always more correct to improve the strengths than to spend a lot of energy and budget on stretching out the weak ones.

It often happens that there is nothing in the city at all for which tourists would know it. In this case, we can create a tourist magnet from scratch, based on some local specifics. For example, we are currently working on the Ukrainian capital of street musicians.

How do you interact with a potential customer through a tender?

When we participate in a tender, our presentation is formally an act of completed work. Its preparation lasts from 2 to 6 months. At each stage, we consult with the customer's group, show the intermediate stages, so the result is not a surprise for him. Since this is a state tender, communication with the organizer takes place through the site.

The customer agrees to cooperate with us, not at random. Previously, he gets acquainted with our work in social networks and at seminars or learns about us from colleagues. This market is quite narrow, and everyone knows everyone, the chairmen of the tourism committees communicate with each other.

And how was your last tender for the Kyivshchyna project?

For the tender, we needed to prepare a large number of printed documents and only a week was left to prepare them. We had all the qualification documents (letters of recommendation etc.). But the certificates of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, from the tax and other similar documents, still had to be obtained. We understood that we would not be able to cope on our own in such a short time, so we turned to a consulting company for help, which helps in preparing for the tender.

Here I want to pay tribute to your site. The certificate from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which I ordered through their official website, did not come to me for almost a week. So I decided to play it safe, I also ordered a certificate from you – and it came in 5 minutes.

Why did you choose SmartTender.biz for work?

Of course, first of all, I chose you, because SmartTender is my client, and I wanted to personally try the product for which I have been creating an interface and a brand book for 2 years. And in the end, I just confirmed all my expectations. Most impressed by the work of your call center. Polite managers, instantly answer and direct where necessary. If required, they additionally include encryption of the conversation. And of course, you have a very convenient and intuitive interface.