hello @ alexkostiw.com ︎

913 543 20 35
Chicago, Illinois

Connecting characters with audiences.

I have worked with clients in the arts, built environments, education, and publishing. Together, we tell thoughtful, compelling stories through art and design.

I treat a work of design as a stepping stone into the client’s world—whether a visual identity, graphics for a page or a wall, cover-to-cover publications, or a Squarespace site. I’m excited most by projects that connect audiences with creative voices or that map narrative onto physical spaces.

My studio practice pursues the primeval belied by order. I use design, sparse information, and print formats to gesture toward human interiority, feeling, and intimacy on the cusp. Though often slender, my books draw readers into intuitive, narrative experiences. My work has been in comics expos internationally and is collected in the Joan Flasch Artist’s Book Collection, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Library of Congress.

I teach courses in graphic design and storytelling at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I received my MFA in Visual Communication Design.

I love talking with people about comics and offer a workshop in which we investigate design in the context of the medium. ︎