Ukrainian IT experts and design studios are in high demand in many international companies as they set a high bar in terms of quality and performance. For instance, just think of Ahrefs, the most-used SEO tool by the professional community, or the projects of Tubik Studio.
Top Ukraine Digital Companies
This service created for English grammar and spelling check is now used by almost everyone doing writing for business, studying or personal purposes. Only at Google Chrome, over 10 million people use it regularly. These are creators, entrepreneurs, professional writers, students, and other specialists who get their English texts reviewed with Grammarly.
Grammarly was founded by three enthusiasts from Ukraine: Oleksiy Shevchenko, Maksym Lytvyn, and Dmytro Lider in 2009. First, they considered it a service for students but soon expanded their audience, as more and more people were willing to use Grammarly to help them improve the written communication. It took them less than ten years to grow from the first online editor to a powerful AI-based app able to review grammar and spelling as well as perform an advanced style, clarity, vocabulary and tone of voice check.
Grammarly was rated “The most innovative companies in the world 2019” in the category “Artificial Intelligence” according to the Fast Company. Also, in 2020 and 2021, Forbes named Grammarly one of the best companies working with cloud technologies (rated 43 out of 100).
Depositphotos is one of the biggest graphics marketplaces familiar to everyone who ever resorted to stock images. Today, the company founded by Dmitry Sergeev in Kyiv has $8 million of investment, an external valuation of $100 million, and almost 500 employees.
The service was introduced in 2009 and immediately started gaining momentum. Depositphotos entered the niche at the right time and managed to get the community’s attention with quality content and an intuitive interface. These are the values they keep targeting in their work 2022, so today, Depositphotos provides one of the richest libraries and ultimate customer support in 14 languages.
In fact, the way Depositphotos approaches the matters of quality photo content is worth our particular attention. Content providers pass an exam before they can upload and sell their work, and they also should provide all the necessary documents to confirm their right to use the files. Photos, vector graphics, and videos are checked for quality standards and possible commercial potential before being accepted for sale. Such a strict model allows picking the best of the submitted files and providing users with the most high-end graphics for their money.
Essential Photos & Stock Images
Firstly known as Crello, Vista Create is an online graphics editor for creating static and animated designs, launched by Ukrainian company Depositphotos in 2017 as a separate product. It offers free access to a library of graphic templates, music, fonts, animations, and 600,000 stock photos. The site also includes an online editor that allows you to create visual content without professional graphic design skills.
Today, the development team has more than 100 people in different parts of the world — from the head office in Limassol, Cyprus, to the development center in Kyiv, Ukraine. All these people are united with their genuine passion for design, technology and the desire to make great products together. Through their work, they prove that visual content matters and great design always enhances the message. And now they have more than 7 million people as clients who share their point that art is first of all a freedom of expression.
Vista Create is a platform where everyone can create visuals for professional and personal needs in no time — design skills are optional. It proves that with the right tool at hand, everyone is capable of making brilliant artworks and outstanding design amplifies the message.
TemplateMonster is a large and growing Ukrainian marketplace that was founded in 2002. There you can find a rich library of high-quality digital products matching the latest design standards. The collection of items includes a wide choice of templates that can be used for all kinds of projects, startups, small or large companies, and any other kind of business.
The creators of the TemplateMonster explained how they differ from other marketplaces by giving their motto: the platform was established with the simple idea that all web PROs should get high-quality digital products with ease. And now the site comprises over 2,000 authors and more than 5 million clients. To achieve their main goal of creating the best conditions for digital product makers and motivating them to upload more of their amazing products, the help center for authors was created as well as the possibility to communicate with the team of TemplateMonster.
In 2021, TemplateMonster launched its own Monster’s Award. The goal is to let the designers decide which WordPress products are the best based on their own experience with certain web tools.
Ahrefs is a Ukrainian software company that develops online SEO tools and free educational materials for marketing professionals. It intends to stay independent and focus on helping people to create useful content and to make it more accessible with an ultimate goal to make a search engine sharing profit with content authors. Ahrefs is useful for backlink assessment, competitor and keyword analysis.
Ahrefs was founded by Dmitry Gerasimenko, whose interest in search engines started in 2007. This led to the foundation of the company in 2010, which in turn became the source of data for Ahrefs’ first version of Site Explorer. It steadily grew and these days, it updates the index with the freshest backlinks on the web every 15 minutes, and the crawler processes up to 8 billion pages a day. That is a really impressive result, as it’s more than a third of what Googlebot does.
These days Ahrefs work with many world’s leading companies: Facebook, eBay, Netflix, Uber, Pinterest and the number is rising. According to their statistics, every 7 days they get about 10,000 new registered users. Due to the team’s hard work, Ahrefs was awarded by Quality Choice Award, Trusted Vendor Award and Happiest Users Award.
Uptech is a Ukrainian outsourcing web and mobile development company that creates websites and mobile apps from the very scratch. It also helps innovative companies design, develop and ship beautiful software products. Uptech does UX & UI, work with both iOS and Android and creates mobile apps for them and launches responsive websites.
Uptech is a team of 60+ professional creators, who are united by one solid common goal: creating an inspiring work environment for employees and customers, to build great products together that improve the world. There are many popular companies that became their clients: Unilever, Vista Create (ex Crello), IP Land and many more. Their most outstanding works are Nomad (a digital platform that simplifies renting and buying homes in Dubai), Aspiration (a financial firm), Plai (a simple and powerful performance management platform for strategy execution) and Studenten (a marketplace for students and job seekers within the Netherlands).
Their headquarters are situated in Ukraine, but the company works with different countries and its products were recognized by the international community. That’s why they got many Ukrainian and world awards, such as Clutch for Top B2B companies in Ukraine, Dou for the Best Employer in Kyiv, Awwwards and the list goes on. Despite the fact that Uptech became famous worldwide, the staff is still very approachable and ready to help each client and deal with every project individually.
Top Ukraine Digital Designers & Studios
Tubik is a Ukrainian design studio that does web & mobile UI/UX, interface animation, icons, logos & branding and is known worldwide for its unique approach to visual aesthetics. Their works get recognition from the professional community, and the list of awards is another proof of their incredible vision of how good design should be made. Awwwards, Red Dot Design Award, and Behance are just a small part.
Getting to know Tubik’s work is similar to exploring different fields of design. Digital artists will find inspiration in their illustrations that feature shading, inking, naive art, oil painting, and all aspects of modern visual art. Branding designers will feast their eyes on the concepts elaborated for Ukrainian and international companies.
Finally, for anyone fascinated with web design or seeking meaningful social design projects, there are some in Tubik’s portfolio that won’t leave a single creator cold. These are the renowned Kubrick Life, a biography website that received multiple design awards, and a graphic design & illustrations project on the Chornobyl tragedy. The latter is powerful eclectics bringing together the vibes of the 1980 Soviet aesthetic, digital collage, and modern minimalist typography for a more complex, emotional impact.
Balance, beauty, and usability — these are only a few words to describe the works of a Ukrainian designer, Oleg Kulik. Oleg is a UX\UI and graphic designer working in BananazZ, a Kharkiv-based studio. He is known for his experiments with classic minimalist concepts, which he spices up with color accents and expressive typography.
While it’s quite common for designers to show different aspects of their creative personality depending on the client’s needs, Oleg shows a very distinct, solid personal style. Indeed, the way he plays with color combinations and clean, geometric fonts mesmerizes, and that’s what customers and colleagues come to him for.
Oleg has received over 18 awards from Behance, was nominated in the “Ukrainian Creative Awards – The very best of” 2021, and joined the Awwwards Young Joury in 2020-2021. Apart from his creative work, he also teaches UX/UI in UX-ENERGY.
We cannot speak of Ukrainian design and art without mentioning Tania Yakunova, an incredibly talented artist from Kyiv. You probably have seen some of her illustrations in the flat naive style with lots of shading and motion. Indeed, Tania finds a lot of her inspiration in the avant-garde art and design of the 20 century, so her works bring lots of these visual styles yet totally reimagined and personalized.
Tania creates powerful graphics for large companies, including Apple, Google, Facebook, Coca-Cola, Yves Rocher, and Upwork, her works received multiple prizes. She also held a few exhibitions in 2019-2020. Tania created Google Doodle to celebrate Ukrainian Embroidery Shirt Day 2020 on May 21 — the art brings the classic Slavic embroidery style and colors.
Katerina is a brand designer and art director from Kyiv, Ukraine. She is known for her meticulously elaborated branding projects with great attention to detail, colors, typography, and psychological aspects of commercial visuals. She brings together beauty, good design, and utility, going far beyond eye-pleasing concepts.
One of her goals as a brand designer and creative strategist is to change how streets, store shelves, and the urban environment look. And in every brand identity, logo design, or typeface released by Katerina, this goal is realized in full. We recommend feast your eyes on her portfolio if you seek branding inspiration, as there are some precious discoveries. Take alone the TEDxKiyv project, the avant-garde Misto Font design, or the campaign for the Shevchenko National Prize, the main cultural award in Ukraine.
Shapoval Agency is a digital marketing agency founded in 2017 in Odessa, Ukraine. They do branding, design, and web development, create effective digital marketing systems and help maintain the business’s marketing activity (SEO, PPC, SMM). The team has made quality and effective communication their priority. And with the multitude of tools they use in their work, they are a time-saver for many online businesses.
Shapoval Agency has projects made for food, financial, and real estate companies in their portfolio. They also redesigned the game forum for World of Warcraft, showing the extreme versatility of their skills. Finally, we at The Designest are happy to partner with Shapoval Agency, too. So as we recommend this team, we can vouch for the quality and excellent support.