Today we’d like to introduce you to Nick Pridachin.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Hey, my name is Nick, but you might know me as Luis Cipher. That’s a nickname which basically a wordplay for Lucifer. I had this nickname from the time when I was playing punk band in Russia and we had a bit influence of black metal, so that’s where it came from.
I was born and raised in a small Russian town on the border with Ukraine. I was playing violin when I was a kid and music was a huge part of my life then. When I was finishing school, I’ve met some new friends with mutual interests and we started punk band. Those were awesome times when we were just having fun and touring Ukraine and cities nearby. This time basically formed my mindset and introduced me into DIY culture.
I’m into digital design, programming and all that nerdy stuff, so I was responsible for album covers, posters, merch and all that stuff. I loved it!
Then I began studying in the University and it was taking a lot of time, so i had to quit the band.
I became a graphic designer and worked for some time in this field, then me and my friend decided to make a company. At first, we worked in Russia but then moved to states cause there is a lot more work there and it was awesome to learn English that way. So we worked super hard for some time and I started to feel that I need to express myself somehow to maintain creativity. And about that time we started a clothing brand, but it was like an inside joke for people from our gang. I was making some prints for t-shirts and we screen printed them at home. It was really fun experience. We made an Instagram account for the brand and I started to draw stuff for it. Then we kinda abandoned the idea with the brand, but I still had the account, so I decided to make it my own and draw for it from time to time. Basically, my drawings are reflection on my life and experiences. Music still takes huge place in my life, so you can find a lot of drawings about that. I’m trying to do more personal things, but it’s kinda hard for me, cause I’m Russian lol. But I understand that this stuff is really important and it helps people to understand that there in nothing wrong with them like we’re all crazy a bit.
So I don’t know where I’m going with my art, but its starting to feel that I can’t live without it anymore.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Yes, most of my struggles is that I don’t have enough free time for drawing. I’m spending most of the time hustling for my company, cause now it’s not only me and my friend but five more teammates and we need to make sure that we have enough for all.
Besides that, I think I’m not a great artist obviously, so it takes time to form the idea into something that I can implement. But I’m working on it and don’t stop until I can draw whatever I want.
Please tell us about your work.
Well, it’s not a company, but just me drawing stuff and posting it to insta. I’m known for my lowbrow art, which is basically a reflection on my thoughts and the world around me.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I remember how I wrote my first computer program when I was a kid. I was attending some free courses which was organized in my school or something and there were those super old computers which are running on DOS. I was studying Basic programming language (it’s a name) and made a program, which was an English test for Russian speakers. There was some introduction and then it was showing the word in Russian and user should translate it to English and submit. After that, the program was showing the score. I know that it’s pretty basic, but I was like 12 years old and it was so amazing to build something real on the computer. I think that was the point when I fell in love with computers.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gnechlord/
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