Designing stories that connect.

hello @ alexkostiw.com ︎

913 543 20 35
Chicago, Illinois

For over seven years, I have worked with diverse clients in art and culture, fashion, higher education, and publishing. Together, we tell stories through design.

I specialize in Book and Print Design, Visual Identity, Website Branding, and Graphic Art. Involved in every step, I translate my client’s message into thoughtfully crafted solutions built on research, visual and conceptual exploration, and collaboration.

I’m excited most by projects that connect audiences with creative voices and that center narrative experiences through physical spaces and formats.

Brute is the moniker of my self-publishing practice. My books and works on paper focus on spaces in communication—where instinct and imagination meet to make meaning.

With roots in design, printmaking, and literary criticism, I use poetic and adapted writing and image, visual structures of comics, and conceptually driven forms to make gestural works about perceptions of reality, the hidden parts and possibilities of the self, and connecting with others.

My work has been in expos internationally and is collected in the Joan Flasch Artist’s Book Collection, the Chicago Zine Collection at the University of Chicago Library, the Zine and Comics Collection at the MassArt Library, the Decker Library at MICA, 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 an MFA in Visual Communication Design. And yes, I’ve always loved books—I hold a BA in English literature from the University of Chicago.

I love talking with folks about comics at the intersection of poetry and design. I even offer a workshop that investigates design as a generative tool for storytelling. ︎

Hello there.

I’m Alex—I give shape to stories as a graphic designer, artist, and educator in Chicago. Take a look︎, read a bit about me, or get in touch.