Arts in Minds - Olha Protasova

Arts in Minds

Various clients + self-initiated works

A plasticine brain for a festival exploring art, mental health and neuroscience.

Arts in Mind was a week-long festival at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), bringing together researchers, artists and the public to explore new ways of understanding mental health, wellbeing, the brain and the mind.

Cog Design commissioned me to create the key image for the festival.

The challenge

The central idea needed to connect two different worlds: neuroscience and the arts.

The image also had to work as an immediate identifier for the festival across a wide range of applications — from posters and digital communication to venue signage and printed materials.

The obvious metaphor was a brain. The challenge was making it feel visually engaging rather than clinical or predictable.

The idea

I created a brain from plasticine, using colour and physical texture to turn a familiar scientific form into something tactile, playful and approachable.

The material itself became part of the message. A brain made by hand suggested that something associated with science and research could also be explored through creativity, making and human experience.

Making it real

I researched different ways of representing the brain and explored how the form could remain recognisable while becoming visually distinctive.

The physical sculpture was then photographed and carefully retouched to create a high-resolution key image suitable for a broad range of applications.

Because the final image needed to work across different formats, the photography and digital finishing were treated as part of the illustration process rather than as documentation of the sculpture.

The result

I created this interpretation as a personal gesture of gratitude to Adobe for its exceptional support of Ukrainian creatives following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Adobe's logo is already strongly associated with colour, so I wanted to explore what would happen if its familiar palette was combined with the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag.

The question was also an ethical one. We are familiar with many multicolour interpretations of the Adobe logo, but incorporating the colours of a particular country changes its meaning.

I decided to take that risk as a way of expressing gratitude for Adobe's support, including a grant programme that helped many creatives.

Client: Cog Design
End client: King’s College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience
Project: Arts in Mind festival
Year: 2018
Role: Key image, plasticine sculpture, photography & retouching
Art Director / Project Lead: Daniel Cox

Thank you for watching the collection. If you have any questions, please contact me via hello@olhaprotasova.com

You can also dowload my portfolio presentation

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Selected Works

Brand Marks in PlasticineIllustration/lettring