Ukrainian design bureau and graffiti team Tonko Sport demonstrates that Ukrainian uniforms can be conceptual. For two years they have been designing helmets. However, for the current World Cup stage, they have already worked on a jumpsuit for athletes of the All-Ukrainian Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation.
The racing suit is inspired by the newretrowave, complete with glitches as a metaphor for overload, and made in bright national colors. In addition, the helmet, which features graffiti elements in its design, traditionally deserves special attention.
It was in this uniform that Vladyslav Heraskevych came fourth at the World Cup in Winterberg, Germany, in early January and repeated the best result in the history of Ukraine at the Skeleton World Cups. And the official Instagram account of the Olympic Games dedicated a post to the Ukrainian athlete.
DTF Magazine asked Mykhailo from the Tonko Sport team about the process of working on the uniform, Heraskevych’s role in creating the design, and the idea to add the phrase ‘All the beautiful ones stay optimistic’ by military and activist Pavlo Petrychenko to the sled
‘THE LACK OF FUNDING FOR SKELETON MAKES IT NECESSARY TO ORGANIZE ALMOST ALL THE PROCESSES BASED ON ENTHUSIASM’
— You are responsible for the appearance of the entire All-Ukrainian Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation. When did this cooperation start?
— The foundation of our cooperation was laid long ago. I studied together with Vladyslav at the Ukrainian Physics and Mathematics Lyceum of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. And later — in the neighboring buildings of the university at the Expocenter of Ukraine (VDNH), where we received technical education together.
Everything started with mutual trust. Vladyslav and his father Mykhailo, who is also Vladyslav’s coach and at the same time the president of the All-Ukrainian Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, liked the style of our graffiti team on the streets from the very beginning and suggested to embody our ideas in the visual aspects of the federation’s uniform.
This is very valuable to us as artists, because commerce suppresses the freedom of the artist in the form of the wishes of the client. We have the freedom to do what we want and no one tells us what color or what lines to choose.
First we created stickers, then we designed the logo of the federation, later — the uniforms for the sport, and we also made Vladyslav’s helmet for the 2021/2022 season, in which he competed at the Olympic Games in 2022.
This helmet can be considered the beginning of a serious and fruitful cooperation. In addition to design work, we are closely connected by our civic position and volunteer activities — together we have implemented and continue to implement a large number of humanitarian projects.
— How often do you update the uniforms of Ukrainian athletes? Do you create it for each competition or for the whole season?
— We would like to make changes to our athletes’ appearance as often as possible. For every World Cup round, for every day. However, the financial component makes its own adjustments. Insufficient funding of Ukrainian skeleton forces us to organize almost all processes only on enthusiasm. Due to expensive sports equipment and high prices for special equipment for our pilots, we face limitations that we have to put up with.
Therefore, successful cases of sports uniform designs for athletes (or which can serve as excellent examples of the interaction between sport and art for other federations or sports clubs) mostly exist in spite of, not because of, the working conditions.
However, every season we prepare something new for the national team and fans of Ukrainian skeleton. If in previous seasons our athletes could boast of freshly decorated helmets, this season we made racing suits.
We look forward to further cooperation with the federation and expect to surprise everyone again next season, which will include the 2026 Olympic Games in Milano Cortina. After all, an athlete’s appearance is part of marketing and prestige, a significant part of the image that makes fans remember athletes and sponsors invest in them.
COMBINATION OF SPEED, AGILITY, ACCURACY AND TECHNOLOGY IN DESIGN
— How was Vladyslav Heraskevych’s uniform for this year’s World Cup created? What role did he play in the design of the uniform?
— Vladyslav got the best role — complete trust in our competence. Our identical life views and tastes in art allowed us to achieve perfect synergy.
The Tonko Sport team had its first concept for the look of the skeleton uniform back in 2020. Since then, the design has not undergone any fundamental changes, but in 2024 we had the opportunity to realize a long-standing idea. We finally found professionals who could combine our design with technological sports materials. So we went back to our concept and updated it.
— Will Vladyslav Heraskevych perform in this uniform during the whole World Cup season? Or will you create other uniforms as well?
— Vladyslav together with other Ukrainian athletes will be wearing these jumpsuits until the end of the season. Our team is already preparing new ideas of suits, helmets and uniforms for the Olympic competitions of Vladyslav Heraskevych and Yaroslav Lavreniuk, who also hopefully will get the corresponding quota.
— What was the main idea behind the form, why does it have these particular graphic elements?
— The main story line in the design is the combination of speed, agility, accuracy and technology — the most important factors on which victory in competitions depends.
A fundamental design element is the interpolation of the athlete’s body in the form of pixel lines whose direction repeats the anatomy. At the same time, the color compositions are inspired by the frequencies of a thermal imager.
The bright patriotic colors on the suit, which adorn the design, make our athletes stand out among others, as well as demonstrate the vitality of the Ukrainian spirit even despite the full-scale war. Also the uniform features references to the newretrowave style.
Also an important element is glitch — areas on the uniform that create inversion of the pattern and serve as a metaphor for overload, as well as broken rectangles that stand out from the ornamentation. In the end, the mottled contrasting design gave us the opportunity to show dynamics. Speed is felt even in static shots, where you can see athletes before or after a race.
‘THE GRAFFITI ELEMENTS ARE AN INTEGRAL PART OF OUR VISION’
— What was the most interesting part of the uniform design process and what was the most challenging?
— The most interesting and challenging at the same time is the process of creating a design and realizing it. For the most part, graffiti is selfishness. Because of this, each member of the team stands up for his/her own ideas. We are incredibly lucky that our thoughts are similar, but we always have heated discussions.
— You add graffiti elements to your helmets. How do you use your own experience as a graffiti crew to create uniforms and why is it important for you to add graffiti elements?
— Graffiti culture is our alma mater. Therefore, such elements are an integral part of our vision. From a visual point of view, they fit well into the ideas that are the basis of our design, we use them to draw naïve things on the helmet, something childish and light, we depict nature in the form of original or artificial drips, paint breaks, we leave the paint tape under the varnish as a ‘stroke’ of the master.
Such elements are opposed to the perfect shapes on the helmets, we put in them a reflection on the ideal and the pursuit of it. On the other hand, our cultural code becomes a counterbalance to ordinary designs that are full of complex technical details but lack style and soul.
The design of the helmet for the 2022 Olympic Games was an interesting case, because any branding was banned there, even in the form of a letter or a number. Then we had to remove the whole meaning of graffiti, leaving only the shape. That’s how the style was born, which we use for the federation even now.
— How did the phrase by Pavlo Petrychenko, a fallen military officer, ‘All the beautiful ones stay optimistic’ appear on the sled? Whose idea was it — Heraskevych’s or your team’s?
— As I said earlier, everything is based on mutual trust. Although we are fully responsible for the visual appearance of the team, we are not against the realization of Vladyslav’s ideas, especially since our views are similar.
Vladyslav and Pavlo had good communication on social networks and their worldviews were largely the same, but unfortunately the planned personal meeting never took place. Vladyslav considers Pavlo to be one of the greatest Ukrainians. We fully support Vladyslav in this — after all, it’s hard not to agree that Ukrainians who do everything for our victory are beautiful.
