Alexei Druzhinin

Our group has two rules. Rule number one: never gather in the office. Rule number two: whatever we do, it must be fun and f…cking amazing. We never take up a project unless both rules are observed.

The British Design Academy ruined my life in a good sense. Thanks to it, I left the “white collar” for a pair of jeans and got into graphic designing.

I wouldn’t stop working at all. I have to force myself to take breaks, because when you enjoy your job, you eventually start noticing that all you do is work. That’s a bad thing. You’ve got to learn to organize yourself and make sure you get time to relax.

I don’t try to reinvent the wheel. It’s simply impossible. I rely on the experience already gathered by the world. I’ve always said that it’s better to steal something nicely, than do it yourself but poorly. It’s not like I often resort to this method though, you see, with me it almost always comes out nicely from the start.

You’ve got to understand that the country that you’ve always wanted to visit, that you’ve been dreaming about for so long, might turn out to be a disappointment. I’m convinced that your perfect tourist route lies through the country you know absolutely nothing about.

Creativity is also a muscle that you can work out just like any other one. When you find yourself in the midst of some creative stagnation, and you can’t get out of it, you need some sort of an emotional blow. At first, it will be the blow that comes from the outside world, but you’ve got to learn to generate it artificially within yourself, to generate this state of a creative impulse. Creative impulse is also a muscle, a string. To touch it, to make it vibrate, you simply need to take a look at the world around with your eyes wide open.

It’s great when a designer knows his artistic techniques, but it’s even better if he can think. I don’t know my techniques, but I find that I can actually think, which, I believe, is a good thing (laughs).

I like the idea of a narrow specialization, but with broader mindset. The specialization of a hairdresser, who cuts everyone’s hair into one and the same bob, is something I can’t quite understand. You’ve got to know your profession inside-out. If you’re great at everything, that’s your narrow specialization — you’re great at EVERYTHING!

Nowadays, if you offer a woman to help her, say, carry heavy bags, you’re most likely to hear a “no”. I’ve tried that: nine out of ten refused, the tenth one sounded surprised, but eventually decided to give it a try. The hearts of city dwellers are becoming immune to warmth and kindness. And it’s sad.

When my own child starts travelling around virtual Africa in a massive interactive helmet, greeting local aboriginal helmet-creatures, I’ll, probably, understand. I am generally quite optimistic about this type of future. I don’t think the future will be better or worse, just different.

I’ve figured out the whole thing with companies a while back: as long as they can make money on you, they keep you, and that’s reasonable. The moment they can’t make money on you anymore, you get fired. And it’s exactly the same when you work for yourself. The moment you can’t make money on yourself anymore, you fire yourself, and start doing something else. But in any case, you’re always the one to make the decision.

I could never understand people who fear being fired. When it happens, I always congratulate the person on receiving a new blow from life that’s going to help him move on, keep going forward. If you look at it, all these changes are only there to accelerate your progress.

I buy, therefore I live. Nowadays your ability to buy is what mainly determines your inner state. If you can no longer buy things, you plunge into depression.

You’ve got to get a kick out of what you’re doing here and now. I don’t see the point of suffering for three months trying to finish a job, just to get obnoxiously drunk in the end, and say that everything came out perfect. It’s a bit different with oriental cultures: they turn every step of their work, here and now, into sheer pleasure, which means the result is automatically bound to bring the same pleasure. The idea is that you’ve got to enjoy every stage of your work, otherwise, you shouldn’t even be doing it. And how can something that you’ve been enjoying creating so much, every stage of it, come out poorly?

I can seem a bit of a geek when it comes to work. I like everything to be arranged in orderly pigeonholes, clear and simple.

If the day comes when I have to rely on pension funds, I’d have to admit that my life was a waste.

I want to see the world the way a nine-year-old does. Even the colors of it, at that age, seem completely different, your eyes are wide open to the world around, and there’s an unfading smile on your face. You smile, wherever you go, and people around look at you, like you were mental or something, thinking, what’s wrong with him? But you don’t care. I’m hoping to master this skill by the time I reach old age, so I can smile at virtually anything! This is the type of happy-go lucky state I aspire to adopt when I get to that point of my life.