Think different. Think Soviet Epple. A designer in St. Petersburg reimagines global brands as Soviet creations

Mikhail Levchenko, a designer living in St. Petersburg, has reimagined several famous global corporate brands—Mercedes, Dior, Samsung, Apple, and others—as Soviet creations, publishing his illustrations on the website Behance.net.

“I've drawn a lot of work in the Soviet style, but I never united it all into a single theme. Then I got the idea to do something global—about something everybody knows, but done in a light that's completely different from what they're used to. That's the main idea behind the project: to look at brands that are familiar to everyone, but to present them as if they originated in the USSR,” Levchenko told Meduza.

Levchenko says he was inspired by old Soviet signs, logos, and posters. “For example, when I created the ‘Sovietized’ logo for Mercedes, I relied on one of the logos for [the Soviet car] Moskvitch,” the designer explained.

Levchenko says he's always been enamoured with Soviet lettering, and he even manages an online community dedicated to Soviet style, and lectures on the subject.

Levchenko specializes in lettering, when a designer doesn't create a font, but but draws letters and words in a unique style for a specific case. On the social network Vkontakte, Levchenko is the head of a group called Soviet Lettering.