Meet Anastasia Vishnevskaya, art director of product design at Alice

This is the second story in our Design Warm-ups Leads series, where we introduce the people behind our practice sessions.

Today’s lead is Anastasia Vishnevskaya, art director of product design at Alice.

Anastasia works on smart devices powered by Alice and designs interactions that help people use them clearly, naturally, and with a sense of care. Her work sits in a space where the interface is not always just a screen. Sometimes it is a voice, a gesture, a sound, a movement, or a small response from the device.

That makes the design challenge more complex. The designer has to think not only about visual hierarchy, but also about how the product behaves, how it reacts, and how the user understands what is happening.

Before design, Anastasia had a very diverse path. She studied engineering technology, almost completed a marketing degree, designed a forged metal grill for her diploma project, worked as an illustrator, decorated a restaurant, and also worked with a film studio.

This background seems to explain a lot about her approach. She pays attention not only to logic and structure, but also to material, atmosphere, sound, movement, and the physical feeling of interaction.

Outside of work, photography gives her energy. She used to draw in a studio and now spends more time taking photos. She reads classic English literature, and then can suddenly switch to a Cormoran Strike detective novel by J.K. Rowling.

In her work, one of the most challenging parts is constantly designing new types of interaction: voice, gestures, and scenarios that do not yet have obvious patterns.

One of the hardest projects she remembers was designing the motion sensor interaction for the first Station Mini. A person could place their palm above the sensor to control music. At the time, this interaction had to be invented almost from scratch, in close collaboration with engineering.

For Design Warm-up #53, Anastasia brought a task that moved participants away from traditional screens.

The idea was to create interface sounds using everyday objects.

Anastasia used a banana and a glass, nachos and a spoon, and showed how these sounds could become transitions between screens for Yandex TV Station.

The session was not about making another polished UI screen. It was about thinking how an interface can sound. How sound can explain an action, support a transition, create a mood, and make a digital product feel more alive.

Participants created their own sound concepts from objects around them. One of the most memorable ideas was an interface sound made with a fan and a toilet flush.

A thought from Anastasia that feels especially relevant for designers in 2026: being able to explain your work is just as important as doing it well.

A strong design decision only works when others can understand why it matters.

Anastasia’s Telegram: @busy_bee_vishnevskaya
Design Warm-ups: @Designwarmups

Design Warm-up #53:
t.me/Designwarmups/396