New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Boy, with mother, found body on L.I. beach
Sovetov was a ‘designer of singular vision’
A 4-year-old boy walking on the beach with his mother and their dog discovered the body of Yale University graphic designer Anton Sovetov on Duck Pond Road beach in the Long Island town of Southold, N.Y.
Amy Kaufman, of the Southold hamlet of Cutchogue, said Thursday she, her son, Oliver, and their dog, Sage, were about a mile from her home walking along the beach when, she said, “My son said, ‘Mom, is that a dead body?’”
Kaufman said they are regulars on the beach and “we were climbing rocks and having fun” on the private beach at about 10:30 a.m. Saturday when they came upon Sovetov’s body. She called police and later was interviewed by a
detective, she said.
She said Sovetov was dressed in a black T-shirt and black pants and was wearing his shoes. Kaufman said the officer “seemed to think that there wasn't” trauma to the body.
Police Chief Martin Flatley of the Southold Town Police Department said the department no longer is involved in the case. “Our role in it was just the recovery of the body and getting it to the morgue,” he said Thursday. “The only investigation we were doing was to try to identify the body.”
Officer Daniel Mackey responded at 10:56 a.m. and then called in Detective Roman Wilinski, according to the police report. The Suffolk County medical examiner's office then responded and removed the body “for further investigation,” the report states.
Southold is at the far end of Long Island's north fork, due south of Clinton.
Flatley said he was in contact with Yale and New Haven police but that those departments are in charge of the investigation. “The circumstances of the death itself would be on the Connecticut side since that's where he was reported missing from,” Flatley said. He said the medical examiner's office would be investigating the cause of death.
Sovetov, 44, was last seen on a video taken from New Haven's Elm City Market Feb. 5. His last contact with colleagues at Yale's graphic design office was the previous day.
Sovetov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and studied at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague, Netherlands, for four years before studying at the Yale School of Art, graduating in 2016. He had worked at the university since 2017.
Colleagues and university officials described Sovetov as a talented artist who was well liked by those who knew him. His Yale obituary described Sovetov as “a versatile graphic designer in the Office of the University Printer whose creative work gave clarity, style, and prominence to Yale's public health messaging amid the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“Within months of graduation, he joined the university printer's office as a Rollins Fellow,” the obituary said. “He distinguished himself for the breadth of his artistic skills — including drawing, calligraphy, typography and type design, and digital illustration — and was hired onto the regular staff after the fellowship.”
The obituary called him a “video game and science fiction enthusiast, or ‘gamer.'” His projects included posters, banners, logos, icons, dinnerware and complete visual identities.
“Sovetov shaped visual messaging for a wide variety of Yale offices, initiatives, celebrations, and programs, including the Fortunoff Archive of Holocaust Testimonies, the new residential colleges, the Yale Planetary Solutions Project, commencement, and the university's response to COVID-19,” the obituary said. His work
on COVID included banners that covered university bulletin boards urging people to “wear a mask” and “wash your hands,” it said.
The obituary went on to quote University Printer John Gambell, who hired Sovetov and supervised him. “Anton was at the heart of a shift in Yale's graphic identity, from one almost solely based in type and photography to one based more in illustration. … He was one of the most talented designers I have worked with in my 40-year graphic design career, and an irreplaceable member of the university's communications team.”
Casey Pickett, director of the Planetary Solutions Project and Yale Carbon Charge, called Sovetov's work “spare, evocative, striking, and effective,” according to the obituary.
“He helped me create a presentation that I have used well over 100 times presenting to audiences across Yale, the U.S., and the world,” Pickett said. “After nearly every presentation, someone asks me, ‘Who is your designer? Can you put me in touch?' Anton's work is unlike anything I have seen before.”
“My heart breaks for the loss of Anton,” said Nate Nickerson, vice president for communications, in the obituary. “He was a graphic designer of singular vision: his work for Yale was at turns playful, arresting, somber, and joyous — he had the rare talent of giving emotional power to nearly everything he touched.”
Sovetov is survived by his mother, who lives in Russia. He had been in the process of getting his Green Card to become a permanent U.S. resident, the obituary said. The Office of Public Affairs and Communications and Yale School of Art are planning a memorial gathering.