ANOTHER RUSSIA

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 began his career as the heir apparent to President Yeltsin in the 1990s and led the opposition movement when Putin took power in the 2000s. 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 President Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting 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. 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.

SENIOR ART DIRECTION BY JESSE MCLEAN
PHOTO OF BORIS NEMTSOV COURTESY OF ZHANNA NEMTSOVA