Stephen Perry

“Moscow months go fast, so start running.”

From the offset the studio is alive and is not waiting for you; as such it’s a strange experience finding your feet. Once here, you are a product designer in your own right, a member of the team and receive both the benefits and downsides that come with that. The weight of responsibility and the expectation to keep the pace, but once you have it the benefits far outweigh the costs.

Moscow is in motion constantly, never restful in its essence, the studio is the same, and there’s an almost inherent disquiet that comes with the people, they work tirelessly with a commitment to their output

What makes Lebedev’s Studio different is the aspect of joy that comes packaged with their design. Play and interaction, form without inhibition, creating outputs that are consistent to their inception and at their route delightful to experience, this is what first drew me to them, and now here I can see that it’s one of the foundations of the workspace.

“No nonsense” if it’s wrong they’ll tell you, and if it’s right they’ll tell you.

I’ve had the pleasure of being surrounded by a great, passionate and fresh design team, one that doesn’t “give a shit about corporate values” but does about good design. Been involved in both studio and client projects, allowed the full freedom to design and steer project routes, respected as a designer in my own right and learned a lot from the experience of the team, culture and individuals.

Hopefully to the right there will be a few projects I’ve been involved with at some point, my only regret is not having been involved in more!

Travelling has taught me many lessons, that action is necessary, hesitation counterintuitive, design is alive and decisiveness a virtue.

Should you apply to work here? (No need to ask) Will you learn? (That’s up to you) Are the people nice? (Depends who you meet) Is it cold? (Global warming dependant) Do you speak Russian? (Yandex does) Am I hesitating? (See above)

And finally I can’t thank Tema, Timur and the team enough for giving me the experience, telling me good things to visit and see, the humour, the freedom, the perspectives, companionship and the integration.