Another Russia

Photo of Boris Nemtsov courtesy of Zhanna Nemtsova | Senior Art Direction by Jesse McLean

In 2022, I had the honor of designing the podcast art for Crooked Media’s “Another Russia,” a limited series detailing the 2015 murder of Russian liberal activist Boris Nemtsov. Nemtsov was at the center of every major turning point in Russia’s modern history. He was an activist for democracy as the Soviet Union collapsed. He went from being heir apparent to President Yeltsin in the 90s, to leading the opposition movement when Putin took power in the 2000’s. When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Nemtsov was the first to ring the alarm bells about endless war. Then, he was assassinated. And with him, maybe the possibility of a different kind of country. Hosted by his daughter, Zhanna Nemtsova, and Crooked Media’s Ben Rhodes, “Another Russia” tells the story of what happened to a family and a country caught in the crossfire of history, and asks if another Russia is possible.

Zhanna graciously provided decades worth of photographs from her personal archives to use for the project. Ultimately, she and I chose an image of Boris in his youth, wanting to remember the hope he brought to a new generation of Russians. For the artwork, we landed on a direction that depicted the extreme censorship and repression under Putin’s authoritarian regime.