Biography
Boris Ljubičić (Sinj, 1945) worked in the fields of graphic design and visual communication. He graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1968. After moving away from painting, he dedicated himself to graphic design. His guiding principle is that “design is change”, and that the designer bears responsibility for space and time. He is one of Croatia's most prominent designers; over the course of his prolific career, he has produced numerous works across various areas of design and visual communication. His work has been published in international professional journals, and he is the most frequently featured Croatian designer in global surveys of graphic design. His design solutions encompass visual identities and logos, posters, books, album covers, packaging, advertising, television design, typography, signage systems, spatial interventions, and other self-initiated projects. He developed his professional practice through work for the cultural and artistic scene, and from the early 1970s onwards, he expanded his activities to include the business sector, sports, media, tourism, and political parties. In 1976, he founded and led the CIO Visual Communication Team, which created the significant visual identity project for the 8th Mediterranean Games held in Split in 1979. He established his own design studio—Studio International—in 1987, collaborating there with his wife Rajna Buzić Ljubičić, Stuart Hodges, and his son Igor Ljubičić.
Ljubičić’s most significant projects include the visual identities and logos for the 8th Mediterranean Games in Split in 1979, the sports brand YASSA, the Labud factory, the company SMS, and a range of institutions including the Museum Documentation Center (MDC), the Croatian News Agency (HINA), the Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography, the Zagreb Fair, Croatian Radiotelevision, the Museum of Arts and Crafts, the Croatian Museum of Naïve Art, the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, Matica hrvatska, the Ruđer Bošković Institute, and others. A separate segment of his work is his self-initiated project for the visual identity of Croatia, ranging from the design of a new national flag to the visual code for everything else. A significant part of his body of work is dedicated to poster design. Particularly noteworthy are his anti-war posters and those created for International Museum Day on behalf of the MDC—the institution with which he has maintained his most fruitful and enduring collaboration.
The distinctive quality of Ljubičić’s design lies not in a specific style or signature aesthetic, but in the exploration and conceptualization of identity — whether for a company, an institution, a country, or a continent. He is the driving force behind the Croatian Design Exhibition (launched in 1999), the professional project known as the Croatian Design Center (2005), and the “Europe 2020” initiative (2003–2005) focused on the visual identity of the European continent. He is a member of the Croatian Association of Artists of Applied Arts (ULUPUH) and the Croatian Designers Association, having served as president and vice-president of the latter. He publishes articles in the daily press and professional journals and delivers lectures to both professional and general audiences.
He has received numerous prestigious awards and accolades both at home and abroad. Notable among the many awards are those for MDC posters created for International Museum Day, such as the first prize at the Media Save Art '91 international event for the 1991 poster, The Big Critique award for the 1997 poster, and the Red Dot – Best of the Best award and the Croatian Designers Association Annual Award for the 2000 poster. He has received numerous awards from Graphis, an institution and publishing house that presents annual design awards across various categories. These include a Platinum Award for the 2005 poster, a Gold Award for the 2006 poster, and a Silver Award for the 2021 poster, which utilized a motif from A Jug Goes to the Well Until It Breaks poster originally created for International Museum Day in 1991. He was also awarded a Platinum Award for the current MDC logo. He is the recipient of the Croatian Designers Association Lifetime Achievement Award (2023), the Vladimir Nazor Lifetime Achievement Award in the field of visual and applied arts (2024), and the ULUPUH Annual Award for Lifetime Achievement (2026).