Franz Gabel

.. on .. Internships are an important thing .. in the country of origin .. no problem and often done .. in a totally new country with an unknown language and new typography .. an adventure .. hey ho lets go .. send your application to the art lebedev studio .. you will have a great experience .. like me .. I applied some days before the start of my industrial design graduation .. more just for fun .. then two days before the start .. the answer of Artemy Lebedev .. “no problem we offer you a paid internship” .. yehaaaaaaa .. get a passport, visa, insurance, ticket, accomodation and go to moscow .. these things took 6 weeks .. the persons in the bureau of the studio helped me a lot with that and even the boss himself gave me advices like flatmates.ru and expat.ru ..

well .. then the journey .. no fixed accomodation yet but a huge list with some possibilities to stay at .. yes no problem at all .. after I visited all flats on the list I knew the suburbs of moscow much better and had three rooms that I changed during my time in moscow .. and of course I knew some new, very friendly and crazy (in first place) russian people .. then the first day in the studio .. very friendly people there ..

I was amazed by the size of the studio .. 160 people working there .. alltogether in a very nice office right in the center of moscow .. right beside the duma and the kremlin .. the best thing: all different departments in one place .. illustration, webdesign, grafix, programming and my destination department: the industrial design .. this is very useful cause you get in touch with other people in a good, productive and inspiring way .. the system is almost perfect .. there is a nice recreation area in the center of the office where you can play pingpong .. drink coffee or table water .. eat something .. sit down and relax and talk to people working at the studio .. the level of knowledge is very high .. everyone is not only a specialist in his sector .. no .. you can talk about almost everything .. and important for an internship: learn a lot .. besides the size .. the organization is more family style .. no strong hierarchy .. no boring meetings .. talking is the secret .. and of course you are very free with the time you spend at the office .. there are many sofas and blankets if you plan to stay over night and the studio is open 24/7 .. and you wont die of hunger .. you get a free coupon every day to use one of the near restaurants like the arty faq cafe or the viet restaurant .. I guess I dont have to write about the very prospering city moscow and russia .. cause this would be to long for this report ..

just a few words .. at this time moscow is the right place to go for designers that want to get a amazing experience in a country and especially in a city that develops very fast .. back to the studio organization .. they develop a virtual tool (for the intranet) called “brain” .. everybody is allowed to post there .. people are able to write comments .. make ratings .. see what the others think .. and the best .. the things developed there go into production very fast if they are good .. and even better: the author of the idea gets a part of the product advantage .. this fact rises the motivation to a new level .. now to my work .. from the first day on I was involved in every project in the product design department and I was allowed to say what I think with no restrictions .. after I got my own monster machine .. very good technical equipment by the way .. I was able to design .. sketching is an essential thing there and everybody pins own results at the wall .. creating a good place to discuss things .. when I had problems with something I got help fast ..

I planed to improve my digital sketching skills after I get home .. and talked about that some day .. imagine: the next day there was an A3 Intuos at my desk and I got provided with tutorials .. I worked in different projects and also got my own baby: the TETRIUS magnet project .. all the steps concerning the first sketches about size, color, texture, models, material, production and packaging I could work out by myself .. that keeps the motivation up .. especially in an internship .. so no coffee cooking .. no no .. real work waits for you in moscow .. hmm talking .. this is one negative point .. if you are not able to speak russian it gets a little bit hard .. all people understand what you say but a lot are to shy to talk .. and if you are in a brainstorm or discussion and the language switches to russian you are out .. this could be better .. and be aware of the boss Artemy called Tema .. it is possibel that he jumps through the studio with jumping shoes or collects signatures on a paper that somebody is not allowed to come to the studio anymore .. hehe .. funny joke: it was a birthday present .. ahh my birthday was in moscow too and big surprise the studio did not forget it and I got cool presents .. beer .. the amazing gunther porno music and so on ..

as a conclusion .. it was a really good time there that I wont forget my whole life .. and I want to thank Artemy Lebedev, Timur Burbeyev, Dominik Heilig, Olesya Zaytseva and all the other friendly people at the studio that supported me and made that good experience possible .. Franz Gabel .. Halle/Germany .. off .. ..

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