Hello, creative world, my name is Nataly Yeromenko, and I’m a Creative Director, Designer and founder of Étrange Creative & Digital Production Agency. I was born and started my career in Ukraine, but since 2016 I have lived and worked in Barcelona, Spain.
I started before the computer
When I entered University to study Art and Graphic Design, I didn’t have a computer or even a laptop. So, for almost half of my studies, I was doing everything manually. I remember drawing logos, constructing typefaces, working with composition, experimenting with different materials and basically learning to see before I learned to use design software.
At the same time, I needed money, so I was constantly looking for opportunities to work. During my second year at university, I got a job at a local newspaper.
That was actually where I first learned how to use a computer professionally.
I learned CorelDRAW and started creating simple layouts and crosswords for a black-and-white newspaper. It sounds very basic now, but at the time it was amazing. I remember the feeling of seeing something I had created actually being printed and distributed. I was very young, and suddenly my work was going out into the world. That was probably one of the first moments when I understood that graphic design could be more than something I was studying. It could actually become my profession.
I worked on magazines such as KINO, MobileWorld and SMS, designing covers, advertising materials, layouts and other visual projects, while continuing my studies at university. One of the projects I still remember particularly well was the cover of SMS, a well-known magazine in Ukraine at the time.
The cover and the illustrated girls were created entirely by me in Illustrator, drawing with a Wacom tablet. There was no AI, no generative tools and very little of the digital assistance we have today. It was simply Illustrator, a Wacom and a lot of time spent drawing every detail by hand.
By the time 2007 I graduated with my Master’s degree in Art and Graphic Design, And, actually, I had already founded my Agency. That is another story
Étrange Creative Agency
Meanwhile, I was always trying to launch something of my own. I couldn't just focus on one thing. At one point, I even opened a small cosmetics kiosk. After about six months, however, I realised that almost all of my salary was disappearing into the business, and it simply wasn't working.
She knew about my ambitions and eventually suggested: why don't we start working independently as designers?
We already had the experience, we already had some clients, and we knew how the industry worked.
And I was interested not only in design. I was fascinated by business, psychology, communication and people. I loved talking to people, making connections and understanding how things worked behind the scenes. I also discovered quite early that I genuinely enjoyed managing people and building teams.
I started networking actively, talking to marketing directors, building relationships and looking for opportunities to bring bigger projects into the agency.
I talked to marketing directors, met business owners, made connections and looked for opportunities everywhere. I wanted to understand how companies chose their creative partners and, honestly, I wanted to grow.
We entered tenders and creative competitions whenever we could. And it worked...
Growing as Art director
There was suddenly much more work than the 3 or 4 of us could handle, so we started hiring more. First came more designers, then account managers, and later web developers. What started as a small graphic design studio was becoming a multidisciplinary creative agency.
And Intertelecom became much more than our first major corporate client. We worked with the company for almost a decade, until 2017, developing creative strategies and campaigns as the brand expanded its presence across Ukraine.
We worked on advertising campaigns for different regions, brandbooks, ads, billboards, radio, digital presence and a huge amount of visual communication.
It was an incredible school for me as an Art Director. I was learning how to think beyond individual designs and how to create and manage large-scale communication systems. At the same time, I was learning how to manage a growing team and how to keep creative quality consistent when there were dozens of things happening simultaneously.
But Intertelecom was only one part of our portfolio. We kept growing, working with major Ukrainian brands such as NOVUS, including its Premia private-label brand, METRO Cash & Carry, and IDS Aqua Service with its Alaska brand, among many others smaller brands and companies.
And by the way, the website we created for IDS Aqua Service won a European award in 2012 for the best water-delivery website.
My ambitions were focused on real projects, growing the agency, building a team, learning how business works and taking on the next challenge.
I was growing with the agency. I was constantly taking masterclasses and professional courses, attending conferences and learning about management, communication and leadership. At the same time, I was designing, developing creative concepts, managing projects, communicating with clients, building relationships, hiring people and running the team.
Looking back, those years were probably my real education as a Creative Director.
Design school taught me how to create. Running an agency taught me how to lead.
And I still use both.
And honestly, I loved it.
I was never only an agency person
In 2013, I launched an online shop called Acessuarium, initially selling accessories for Apple products and later expanding into all kinds of lifestyle items, including bags and wallets.
It was a small project, but it taught me a lot about e-commerce, customers, products and what it actually means to sell something yourself.
And then it gave me another idea.
I realised that I wanted to design bags.
After about a year of selling online, I started participating in some of the most well-known Ukrainian design and handmade markets, including "Made in Ukraine" and "Vsi Svoi". People really responded to what I was creating.
I was managing almost every part of the process — from product development and design to communication, sales, social media and customer relationships. Eventually, I hired an assistant and a small sewing team as the brand grew.
By 2016, BAGART had grown surprisingly quickly and became one of the Top 10 Ukrainian handmade handbag brands.
I had also opened a physical showroom, taking the brand from an online project into a real-world retail space.
For me, it became another very important lesson — not only in branding, but in selling, communication and running a product business.When you create a brand for a client, you can always finish the project and move on.
When it is your own product, there is nowhere to hide.
And then came Barcelona
I was tired of everything. I had started working at 17 and spent years constantly building, managing and working. At some point, I simply wanted to live differently, travel and see what was beyond my working world.
After visiting Spain in 2015, I made a quick decision: I was moving to Barcelona.
I initially continued managing Etrange Agency from Spain, but running a physical agency and team in Kyiv from another country wasn't easy. In 2017, my business partner also decided to take a different direction, so we made the difficult decision to close the Kyiv office.
It was the end of an important chapter, but never really the end of Étrange.
Etrange had become part of my professional identity.
Then 2020 changed everything.
The pandemic caught me in Mexico, and I decided to stay there for a while. But it also brought the end of BAGART. The brand was still based in Ukraine, and the pandemic made it impossible to continue production and sales in the way I had before. I later tried to find a way to relaunch it in Spain, but it simply didn't work that times.
It was a difficult decision, especially after building the brand from scratch and running almost every part of the business myself. But sometimes a project has reached its end, and you have to accept it and move forward.
When I returned to Barcelona, I realised that it was also the perfect moment to rethink Étrange. The agency evolved into a remote international Creative & Digital Production Agency, and in 2023 I created a new identity, website, positioning and services, bringing back the French É and starting a new era of collaborations.
