When he was 18, he joined the Canadian Air Force. Realizing that he preferred art to the army, he bought his service contract in 1965, left the RCAF and left for San Francisco. It was 1965 and it was the beginning of San Francisco's hippie movement in the Height Ashbury district. He lived in a flat on Heght and Page/Masonic.

He began meeting local musicians, poets and other young artists. A year later, motivated by his experiences in San Francisco he wanted to study fine art. He chose to study at the Alberta College of Art in Calgary, Canada.

He moved to Vancouver in 1969, and formed a small book publishing venture with Stephen Gross. This creative alliance produced three books, Yankees Gone Home, 555-1212, and Multiple Majic Media. In 1969 he began editing and publishing a "Rock Culture" magazine, POPPIN with colleagues, Graham Thorne and, Hank Zevallos.

This Vancouver magazine soon circulated throughout Canada and the United States. In fact POPPIN still retains the distinction of being the only consumer magazine published in Canada that enjoyed coast to coast American circulation.

Before it ceased publication, Poppin was the third largest circulating Rock Music magazine, after San Francisco's Rolling Stone and Detroit's Cream.

In 1970, he produced the Jim Morrison Film Festival for his magazine. This premiere event featured the first and only public showing of Highway, Jim Morrison's one time only publicly released, feature length motion picture.

The following year he created and produced a summer long Vancouver Underground Film Festival . It featured independent American/Canadian films. Films by artist Andy Warhol and Jean Luc Godard's Sympathy for the Devil and other talented though lessor known film makers were included in this festival.

Thinking that he still needed a diploma to legitimize the work he was already doing, Ihor then moved to Montreal in 1972 to pursue his studies in Communication Arts at Concordia University, then Loyola College. Aware of his design, and promotional abilities, the university soon contracted Ihor to create a unique publicity project for its Communication Arts department.

His first graphic design company, Studio 123, was located in the historic district of Old Montreal, a location that housed a gay longshoreman's bar below his studio floor, and an heiress's pied-a- terre above. Studio clients included music industry companies, A&M, Polygram, London, Capital and Canadian Recording Industry Association, Alliance Films, The National Film Board, and Concordia University. The studio also served as the location of many events that attracted other artists, musicians, filmmakers and even local politicians.

In 1977 the Canadian Recording Industry Association commissioned Ihor to produce an historical illustrated print documentary of the first 100 years of recorded sound, called Century of Sound. For this event he designed a verbivisual, graphically rich book.

At this time he also turned to music recording and promoting local talent. He personally managed and promoted rock bands through his punk management company which he called Piranha Productions Inc. He actively encouraged artists, including Stanly Frank (whom he had signed to Polygram worldwide contract and got the artist a 28 country release within just a 4 month promotional campaign). Later he produced Silver Zipper and Cruiser, two hard rock bands from the Montreal area. Cruiser record reached number 6 on the top 40 radio charts in the Ontario and Canadian markets.

Encore Communications Inc. was formed in 1985 when he moved to a lakefront studio in Montreal's West Island area.

Currently, Ihor works with Canadian and US designers and agencies in Montreal, New York and in his studio in Tampa, Florida. The artist uses the latest computer technologies available to him. This enables him to provide complete creative solutions, including pre-press creative, print, digital art and interactive media including the web. His studio also serves as a painter's studio. He is still active creating new paintings on canvas, or antique board.