Yandex 360
Yandex 360
3D & 2D illustration concept for the biggest collaborative service for work and everyday use in CIS
3D & 2D illustration concept for the biggest collaborative service for work and everyday use in CIS
Industry
Industry
SaaS
SaaS
Role
Role
Art Director & 3D Artist
Art Director & 3D Artist
Made
Made
Independently
Independently
The context:
Yandex 360 brings together Yandex's services for work and everyday life, from Mail and Disk to Calendar and Telemost, for individual users and businesses. By 2024 the brand had gone through a full rebrand built around the Orbit idea, with its services shown as planets and satellites in one solar system. Its illustrations, though, felt dated, leaned into a candy-like look and had no shared logic, so the visual language drifted a little with every new piece. The team needed a distinctive style that could scale from an in-product icon to a billboard and stay quick for anyone on the team to produce.
In 2024 I joined Yandex 360 as an independent art director to rethink the brand's illustration style. After reviewing the existing illustrations and the team's feedback and running a style audit, I led the R&D and developed a new 2D and 3D concept, which became the foundation of the brand's current visual language. I also did the 3D design myself, with a fellow 3D artist helping during the R&D stage.
The context:
Yandex 360 brings together Yandex's services for work and everyday life, from Mail and Disk to Calendar and Telemost, for individual users and businesses. By 2024 the brand had gone through a full rebrand built around the Orbit idea, with its services shown as planets and satellites in one solar system. Its illustrations, though, felt dated, leaned into a candy-like look and had no shared logic, so the visual language drifted a little with every new piece. The team needed a distinctive style that could scale from an in-product icon to a billboard and stay quick for anyone on the team to produce.
In 2024 I joined Yandex 360 as an independent art director to rethink the brand's illustration style. After reviewing the existing illustrations and the team's feedback and running a style audit, I led the R&D and developed a new 2D and 3D concept, which became the foundation of the brand's current visual language. I also did the 3D design myself, with a fellow 3D artist helping during the R&D stage.
The solution:
The concept builds on the Orbit idea from the rebrand and carries it into illustration. Yandex 360 becomes a space of smart services that make planning, doing and keeping life's important moments easy, and its services are the planets moving along their orbits.
Illustrations come in three sizes, from large key visuals that present a whole service (L) to compact compositions with a few elements (M) and micro compositions or 3D icons (S), and each size has its own place in the solar system.
L is what you see when you land on a planet, a grounded, static landscape with its own forms and colors and a single dramatic light source, a bit like standing on the Moon. Pull back and you're in open space, the M format, where service planets levitate with satellites around them. S illustrations zoom in on those satellites, small icons and device-like objects floating in space that help people get things done.
I arrived at this logic after a competitive audit, a large reference hunt and several rounds with the team, including one where I asked them for their own references so we could agree on what a “space” should feel like. This link to Orbit worked as the team's internal logic rather than an external message, and its job was practical, giving every material, form and composition a reason to exist.
The system covers both audiences with the same compositions, changing only colors and materials between B2C and B2B, so one illustration can serve either.
The solution:
The concept builds on the Orbit idea from the rebrand and carries it into illustration. Yandex 360 becomes a space of smart services that make planning, doing and keeping life's important moments easy, and its services are the planets moving along their orbits.
Illustrations come in three sizes, from large key visuals that present a whole service (L) to compact compositions with a few elements (M) and micro compositions or 3D icons (S), and each size has its own place in the solar system.
L is what you see when you land on a planet, a grounded, static landscape with its own forms and colors and a single dramatic light source, a bit like standing on the Moon. Pull back and you're in open space, the M format, where service planets levitate with satellites around them. S illustrations zoom in on those satellites, small icons and device-like objects floating in space that help people get things done.
I arrived at this logic after a competitive audit, a large reference hunt and several rounds with the team, including one where I asked them for their own references so we could agree on what a “space” should feel like. This link to Orbit worked as the team's internal logic rather than an external message, and its job was practical, giving every material, form and composition a reason to exist.
The system covers both audiences with the same compositions, changing only colors and materials between B2C and B2B, so one illustration can serve either.
For 2D I wanted the vector style to feel clearly related to the 3D without copying it, so the tilt became its main device. Folders, documents and cards lean at an angle and carry the feeling of levitation into flat graphics with almost no extra effort. Semi-transparent overlapping shapes echo the glass, and light rounding keeps things friendly without sliding back into the candy look.
The team wanted more color, so instead of adding new hues we tied the accents to the product itself. Lavender tones form the base, and the accent is orange by default or the service's own color whenever an illustration is about that service, so the palette grows with the product instead of turning into a random set of colors.
For 2D I wanted the vector style to feel clearly related to the 3D without copying it, so the tilt became its main device. Folders, documents and cards lean at an angle and carry the feeling of levitation into flat graphics with almost no extra effort. Semi-transparent overlapping shapes echo the glass, and light rounding keeps things friendly without sliding back into the candy look.
The team wanted more color, so instead of adding new hues we tied the accents to the product itself. Lavender tones form the base, and the accent is orange by default or the service's own color whenever an illustration is about that service, so the palette grows with the product instead of turning into a random set of colors.
Art Director & 3D Artist: Kirill Zharkoy 3D Artist R&D: Valya Kolokol Yandex 360 Team Art Director: Anna Bolshakova Designer: Alyona Gorbacheva Designer: Boris Shemyakov Producer: Alexandra Yaskevich