Early life

Alexander Korotich was born on 11 May 1960 in Yekaterinburg (then known as Sverdlovsk),^[1] son of Vladimir Ivanovich Korotich, professor of metallurgy at the Ural State Technical University, and Margarita Vasilievna Korotich, a teacher and translator. In 1977, after graduating from secondary school No. 36, Korotich entered the Sverdlovsk Institute of Architecture (now the Ural State University of Architecture and Art), from which he graduated with honours in 1984.^[1] He then taught design at the university's department of industrial architecture, and in 1986 he entered full-time graduate school at the Moscow Architectural Institute, specializing in Theory and History of Architecture. In 1989 he completed his PhD thesis The Theme of Function in Architecture. He returned to the Sverdlovsk Institute of Architecture's department of drawing as an associate professor. In 1995, he created the Book Design department within the institute.^[1]

Art illustration and design

In the 1980s, as a student, he made a cycle of scraperboard illustrations for J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings,^[2] which in 1990 was awarded a diploma of the All-Russian competition of works for children.^[1][3] Later he created illustrations for a collection of Tolkien's fairy tales (including Farmer Giles of Ham and Smith of Wootton Major) and poems.^[1][2] He prepared illustrations for many books, including works by Janusz Korczak, and a book of stories by C. S. Lewis, published in Russia.^[3]

Rock music graphics

In 1981, after holding the first rock music festival in the Urals, Korotich established friendly relations with the poet Ilya Kormiltsev. This led to a unique design for magnetic albums of the group Urfin Juice (also spelt "Urfin Dzhus" and "Oorfene Deuce").^[4][5]

In 1992, Vyacheslav Butusov, a friend from his student days, invited him to take part in the design of the album Foreign Land by the group Nautilus Pompilius, a successor to Urfin Juice.^[5]

Television design and video graphics

In 1998, Korotich was invited by Semyon Levin, head of the NTV-Design company, to develop a new design concept for the NTV channel, which in 1999 was awarded the National TEFI Award in the “Television Design” category. Since 2008, Korotich has been working as a leading designer in the ORT-design department of the First Channel television company.^[1]

Since 2006, Korotich has been working on the Zuza fairy tale series for preschoolers, where he writes both prose and poetry, and creates the illustrations.^[1] The romance of the Ural mining legends inspired Alexander Korotich to create his own quasi-historical epic Tales of the Mountain-Fish, which became the first book created using the samizdat Internet service “Ridero”.^[6]

In 2006 he moved to Moscow to become a professor at the Moscow Architectural Institute.^[3] Among the courses he has run was one on creative thinking with Inna Albertovna Salikhova.^[7]