Lera Yarygina

Illustrator & character designer. Bright characters that make products recognisable.

Character-driven illustration for books, games and brands

I’m Lera Yarygina, an illustrator and character designer studying Animation and Illustration at the HSE Art and Design School. I create characters and build whole visual worlds around them — for picture books, board games, mascots and merch.

I help publishers, game studios and brands turn an idea into a character people remember — and make it work everywhere: on a book spread, a game box, a sticker pack or a T-shirt.

Open to freelance, contract and full-time projects.

Brief

Create a mascot and a sticker pack for students of the Management in Creative Industries programme at HSE — a character they would actually use in chats and wear on merch.

Idea

A chameleon, because creative-industry students have to adapt to anything: one day they write a content plan, the next they produce an ad overnight. Tosha is small and a bit anxious, but always delivers. The stickers turn familiar student pains — deadlines, «we can’t agree», «managing IT» — into jokes everyone recognises.

Solution

I designed the character and a set of 15 stickers with short captions, then built a visual system around them: a pattern, a poster, a printed sticker sheet, Telegram stickers and merch — a mug, tote bags, T-shirts and a notebook.

Outcome

A ready-to-use mascot pack that works both in messengers and on physical products. The case shows how one character becomes a community’s inside joke — and a whole merch line.

Brief

An original picture book for young children: a simple story told in a few words per spread. The pictures had to carry the plot on their own and stay rich enough to be looked at again and again.

Idea

A tiny event seen at the scale of a tiny world. For Lyolya and her small friends, an apple falling from a tree is a real catastrophe — so every spread is packed with bugs, frogs and caterpillars reacting to it. Children follow the main story and keep finding side stories in the details.

Solution

I wrote the story, made the storyboard and drew a series of full-colour spreads with short captions. The characters got simple rounded shapes and bright colours, so they read instantly even at small sizes. Then I adapted them for a book cover, a poster, badges, a knitted sweatshirt pattern and a tote bag.

Outcome

A print-ready picture book and a merch line built on the same characters. The case shows storytelling, character design and how one illustrated world can grow into products.