Nikita Semyonov

Born in 1988. Graduated from the Faculty of Applied Mechanics and Mathematics of the Perm State Polytechnic University. Candidate of Technical Sciences. Co-founder of the graphic and object design studio Kama, director of the factory Maket, art director and curator of the Tochka Design School.

Quotes

• All projects where I participate are to benefit the world.
• Saying no is very helpful.
• Children offer fantastic solutions that can be sent to the best contests in the world.
• I don't perceive Perm as a superconstraint. Technological development allows you to do things that go beyond the city and affect everything around.
• Perm is a very cool city in terms of design, and there is a lot that makes me stay here.
• There is an opinion that all people, all countries are like children. This is the main problem: we are so old, and we haven't grown up yet.

My story

My parents had professions that were simple for a Soviet person: father was an engineer at the institute, mother was an expert at the Perm model house. I have always been a techie in my heart, and for a long time, I could not decide on my professional choice. I entered the Polytechnic Institute in Applied Mechanics and Mathematics, and on the side, I began to make websites. Our classrooms were next to those of designers, and once I met them: I needed a design for the site. So it all began that is connected with the design studio «Kama». In general, I am a candidate of technical sciences, and this also has absolutely nothing to do with design in the conventional sense, although, in my opinion, it has.

The design is an extensive area of activity where it is sometimes necessary to adopt and develop many complex engineering solutions. This is a meta-subject area, where a whole range of knowledge is needed, from humanitarian to technical, it is a kind of philosophy. A good designer has all these skills and is able to combine them.

In the design studio «Kama» we realized that it was impossible to do serious projects individually, and we wanted big goals and immense challenges. Searching for soulmates is very difficult, but when you find them, and you come together, you get a complex, exciting product. Someone makes the illustrations, someone communicates with the customer, someone designs, and in that teamwork all the strengths of each participant combine.

The idea of the «Tochka» school appeared in 2011 from the project of the Department of Education «Unique Schools» Its essence was that professionals would teach in certain schools, familiarize children with the profession and help them implement their own projects. Among other proposals was the creation of a design school. Our studio responded because we have always been engaged in mainly socially significant projects. Therefore, the «Tochka» school is one of the main and most beloved of our projects.

When we started, school № 43 was a strange building with all the attributes of the 90s. Together with the design community, we brought it back to normal, developed corporate identity and logo. Erken Kagarov, art director of the Artemy Lebedev's studio and the ideologist of the project, suggested the name «Tochka» («the point»). It must be said that without the support of the school's staff, nothing would have happened. Now the school has an expert council, which includes representatives of the administration and representatives of the design community, we together solve issues of the educational program, interiors, the formation of the environment, relationships and corporate culture.

Five years ago, small successes seemed cosmic. When we formed the workshops, and a cutter came to the mini-printing atelier, which we unpacked and installed, it was like a miracle: it is here, it works! Now there is a printing atelier, a photo studio, a prototyping studio, a ceramic workshop, an IT-studio, a textile workshop, an art studio, and a lot of different equipment, and this is already taken for granted.

We created what we wanted: in the «Tochka» you can come up with something, we will help you think it over and improve it, and you can do it right here. Here you can implement any idea. I want to emphasize that we are doing a regular school: the one that it should be, the one in which I would like to study.

You look at schoolchildren, remember yourself at their age, and it becomes a little embarrassing for yourself: sometimes you make comments to them, but you also behaved in the same way in childhood, if not worse! There are very interested children, there are those whose success is often more significant than the success of adult designers. Very interesting, what will happen next. When someone tries, I want to help him in every way.

We have no task for all graduates to become designers. It doesn't matter where they go next — to artists, doctors, lawyers... The creative thinking that we develop allows us to solve tasks qualitatively, and most importantly, to invent these tasks for ourselves. We teach children so that they can do anything from anything under any conditions. We learn to design and create new.