I didn't know how to do this, so I've written a wikipedia article about myself.
About
Natasha Roscoe is a visual artist and designer based in Clapton, London. She is known for her bright pencil drawings, absurdist short stories, and career in product design.
Early life and education
Natasha was born in Moscow, Russia at the end of the Soviet era. Her mother was an accountant and her father had a small IT service business. She recalls spending a lot of her time with her maternal grandparents.
Natasha started drawing early and never stopped [source?]. She also had access to a PC from an early age, citing classic games like SkiFree, Alleycat, and Supaplex as formative influences.
During school years, she rarely did her homework and struggled to fit in with the schooling system. She later addressed that in therapy [source?]. After leaving school, she got some serious dreadlocks entered Moscow School of Film and Television "Ostankino" to study Documentary Film, but dropped out after one semester. Instead she found a job as a copywriter and project manager at Teletype, the design studio based on Moscow State University campus.
Design career beginnings
In 2013, Natasha entered BA (Hons) Graphic Design at Moscow's British Higher School of Art and Design. She later recalled that to be "the best decision I ever made". Studying part-time, she also started working as a designer at a local studio. Through that, she became a founding designer of Tilda Publishing, a popular Russian website constructor which she also named. Internal tensions led to Natasha leaving Tilda in early 2016.
In 2016–2017 she completed internships at Lava Design (Beijing) and Metahaven (Amsterdam). During this time, she contributed to brand, art, and film projects as a designer, writer and visial artist. She claimed, "Those were unforgettable times, and I am forever grateful".
In 2017, Natasha won Royal Society of the Arts' Student Design Award for her gamified sneaker fashion game concept, Kamereon. "That one still feels unreal," she commented.
Relocation to the UK
After the success of 2016–2017, Natasha was advised to try her luck at getting UK's Exceptional Talent visa via Tech Nation. Her application was accepted, and she relocated to London in March 2018. This meant putting visual arts on hold, and building a career in UX design.
In 2019–2022 Natasha worked at Penguin Books, within Penguin Creative team. During that time, she redesigned Penguin.co.uk and got a lot of free books.
She also held a few product design roles in other companies, and still holds one now.
Natasha got her British passport in 2024.
Writing
Natasha's fascination with writing and publishing stems from middle-school tradition of keeping a slam book, whereby someone starts a notebook, and as it changes hands, each new person contributes something to it.
Together with a friend, Natasha ran an independent wall newspaper at her school:
"I didn't talk much at school, I guess I preferred writing over speaking. Classmates would gather around to read our newspaper, then tell me what they thought. Those were the only times I enjoyed being at school."
In 2017, she self-published a collection of her poems, Top Five Moments of the Day, which she distributed among friends.
In 2021, Natasha completed a short course in standup comedy at Angel Comedy Club in London. She performed standup twice.
In 2023–2024 she attended Creative Writing courses at CSM, which she really enjoyed, and got a few short stories [link missing 126d] and a book idea from.
Since 2017, Natasha writes an end-of-year publication Sport Macrame Review:
"I don't know exactly what it's for, but at this point it seems too late to stop. It's a slightly embarrassing holiday tradition that I have for myself. A few people said it's fun to read."
Drawing and visual art
Natasha started @sport_mcflurry – an outlet for creative endeavours that didn't fit in with her day job – in 2019. She explored making InDesign digital posters, silkscreen prints, pencil drawings of celebrities, short films, and visual diaries.
In 2019, she art-directed and designed the 3rd issue of Season-X-Why magazine.
Later that year, she designed digital posters for instagram. Posters were moderately successful – some getting up to 100 likes – but Natasha was not enjoying the process.
In 2020, she did monthly drawings for celebrity birthdays. She recalls that year fondly, as the only period in her life when there was a lot of time for creativity and very little pressure.
In 2024, she challenged herself to filling an A5 sheet split into 12 squares, every month. She didn't limit herself to any particular subjects, but it soon became mainly memes and animals (especially cats).
Music
At the age of 16, Natasha made her first music video, covering the song NLO by Belorussian band Lyapis Trubetskoy. The video got some favourable comments, and some negativity, pointing out that her guitar was out of tune. This caused Natasha to quit for a while:
"I basically disowned the video and decided I shouldn't ever do that again. Of course I did get back to it eventually, but cautious of putting in too much effort, in case it becomes a laughing stock."
Natasha took guitar lessons for a couple years in her mid-20s, and got pretty good, but struggled to memorise chord progressions. After moving to the UK, she briefly and unsuccessfully tried to join bands.
During the covid lockdowns, she took piano and music theory lessons. She remains an occasional bedroom musician to this day. Her biggest accomplishments to date are the tracks Saplings and Don't Worry About The Government (Noire).
Natasha did yearly mixtapes of her favourite music between 2014–2019, and still updates her public Spotify playlist once a year.
Film
In 2009, Natasha chose to pursue a degree in documentary film, but only lasted one semester. In 2022, she decided to revisit her dream of becoming a filmmaker and enrolled herself into UCL Short Documentary Film course.
Two weeks into the course, Russia invaded Ukraine. Initially Natasha wanted to drop out due to stress, but was persuaded by the tutors to make a film about the war, as experienced by herself and her friends. She interviewed five people, some in Russia and some going through a hasty immigration. Natasha ended up finishing the film three months after the deadline. It was never shown, but is still available on Google Drive [link missing 92d].
Natasha also made a number of short videos like this one.
Personal life
Natasha is not very close with her parents. She's committed to her friendships and likes to think of her close friends as chosen family. Though no formal agreements have been made, no one seems to mind.
Bad experiences in her teens and early 20s motivated Natasha to build a career to be able to live independently and afford therapy. She's done personal and group therapy, and it's been very helpful.
Natasha has very unstable blood sugar and many food intolerances. She's a picky eater, and mainly sustains herself on chickpeas and noodles.
Controversies
As of late 2024, Natasha is still hoping for better things to come.
Natasha Roscoe in 2022
Born
Yes
Birth name
Nataliya Savicheva
Medium
Short stories, pencils drawings, videos, websites
Alma mater
British Higher School of Art and Design, Moscow
Genres
Absurdism
Notable works
