Hallo, my name is Anfisa and I’m an intern in Brand Manual.
Now 3 years away from Ukraine, once moved to Estonia for master in Design&Engineering course in Tallinn Technical University, then living a bit here and there: United States, Italy, hitchhiking 30-something countries life finally brought me here in front of the entrance.
It took some time to work up the courage to knock on Brand Manual’s door for the first time. I remember the first time I visited Tallinn’s Rotermanni Quarter and immediately noticed this strange orange door. It’s got a transparent circle on it, but I never saw what was inside. It made me curious. I started sneaking by every time I passed through. I didn’t even know what Brand Manual did, but still I couldn’t hold myself back. Eventually I did find out (thank you Google) and realised, that there was no other place I wanted to work, but here.
It was my third year in Estonia when I finally learned that if you want something, you had better be proactive and take the first step. Because Estonians are like ice cream: cold at first but if you give them time, quite sweet actually. So there I was one winter evening, after three tries finally courageous enough to send an email to Brand Manual…and got an answer within the hour. With a test. Some more emails and already I’m walking out of the orange door after an interview.
Two months later, on a beautiful first summer day, I finally step into the Brand Manual office as an intern. Sonya showed me around and now Brand Manual has two foreigners and both are from Ukraine. Maybe there is something special about this orange colour that beckons the Ukrainian spirit to join the team?
My first job was to give a presentation and I worried about every misspelled word. But the smiling faces around me felt like positive feedback and even though I couldn’t yet remember everyone’s name, I realised that I was in the right place and this was “my type of watercolour environment.”
Make yourself useful
The first and most important task I received was, “Try to make yourself useful.” Not an easy task to fulfil. Although I’ve been in the “creative business” since I was 5 years old, when my parents first took me to art class, it still took a while to get used to this particular creative environment, no matter how inspiring. What I like best here is that the office doesn’t feel like a 9-to-5 day job. It reminds me more of a co-working space where the atmosphere is like at home, like a family circle of creatives making you feel comfortable. Printing designs, mapping ideas with endless post-it’s on the walls and proper Italian espresso keeping everyone awake. Good enough that even such a morning-hater as myself is motivated to get up at 8 in the morning to get to the office on time.
So what more can I say?
Brand Manual, we have so many things to do together.
Let’s get this “orange door” journey started!
Anfisa
