| Art. Lebedev Studio | |
|---|---|
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| URL | http://www.artlebedev.com/ |
| Commercial? | Yes |
| Type of site | Design |
| Registration | Optional |
| Owner | Artemy Lebedev |
| Created by | Art. Lebedev Studio |
Art. Lebedev Studio is a design company in Russia, founded in 1995 by Artemy Lebedev. The studio create both industrial and graphic design; their motto is "Design will save the world." As of December 2007, they have six principal art directors and over 170 employees. According to the rating of Russian advertising research company AdMe, Art. Lebedev Studio is the leading web studio in Russia.[1] Art. Lebedev Studio is owned by the holding company Art. Lebedev Group (ALG), which owns several other design and advertising companies.
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History and work
The studio began with graphic design, then expanded to include interfaces, web design, and most recently industrial design. It has its own educational center, a publishing house, a media department, and several software teams. As a policy, the studio works only for commercial entities and doesn't accept work from private citizens and political, governmental or religious organizations.
The studio's website
The studio's official website is available in Russian, French and English. Particular attention is given to typesetting, as if the site were a printed book; for example, punctuation marks and the characters Ф, О, C, Т, Л, Я, G, Q, W, V, t, f, т, 1 and 0 are rendered several pixels to the left when they are at the beginning of a line (using Cascading Style Sheets) because they have parts that extend to the left and moving them improves flow and readability. The website also provides insight into its design concepts. Examples of work in the portfolio are often explained in detail - what were they supposed to signify and how exactly they are supposed to make the subject more accessible to the target public. On the Russian version of the site, free technical advice in HTML, XML, XSLT, JavaScript, CSS and other web technologies is dispensed from the knowledge accumulated by the studio designers.
Hiring contests
The studio periodically advertises open hiring contests on its website. Candidates are offered to demonstrate their skills in an original manner. For example, graphic designers were offered to retouch a photograph of an immobile crashed car to make it look like it's completely fixed and moving on a highway. Job offers for web designers are often hidden as easter eggs on the website or comments in HTML.
Web design
In Russia, the studio is largely known for its web design projects. According to their founder, their biggest contribution to this field has been the invention of scalable web sites, in which key images compress or expand to accommodate available space.
Among their notable web design works are the Russian search engine Yandex, the news sites Lenta.Ru and Gazeta.Ru and the Russian websites of Microsoft and Apple.
Industrial design
In May 2005, Samsung released the Sweetheart microwave oven designed by the studio. At that time it was unusual for such a large corporation to hire a Russian design firm. The studio recently received extensive media coverage for the prototype Optimus Maximus keyboard, with customizable graphical displays on every key.
Other design projects
In 2007 Art. Lebedev Studio has designed the inaugural issue of Russia! magazine, one of the few English-language periodicals about Russia.
Controversial statements
- “Mandership”, the often‐cited Artemy Lebedev’s blog located at the studio’s site, sometimes contains controversial statements about language and typography. For example, in 2005, Lebedev has posted an article directed against the use of the Cyrillic letter “Ё” anywhere but in tutorials and books for kids and foreigners, even though the pet version of his own name, “Tyoma” (“Тёма”) contains the sound denoted by the letter, and he has been using it for his e-mail address, though as “tema”.[2]
- If you try using the W3C Markup Validation Service on www.artlebedev.com or www.artlebedev.ru, the validator will get “<N.B.>Browser is the only validator</N.B.>” instead of the page; that is not valid HTML code.
See also
- Parser, a web scripting language developed by the studio for its web projects and released as free software.
References
External links
- Official web site
- The firm slogan, in multiple languages, rendered in their own Artemius typeface family.
