The loss of many hours of work is a shock, comparable to such tragic and stressful situations as the loss of a job, divorce or the death of a loved one. Nevertheless, you can find a bright side in almost any situation. So, the heroes of our today’s interview were not only able to recover from the loss, but also to create an NFT project that responded in the hearts of people who found themselves in a similar situation. How to find a new foothold, let go of the old and “be reborn from the ashes” read in our material.
Konstantin and Artem are designers who suffered from a fateful coincidence – a burned-out office, and who managed to create their own NFT project on the ruins of a burned-out office. They do not speak about their tragedy in gloomy tones, considering it as a kind of new “starting point”.
Why did you choose this office?
Our office was in a cottage. We chose this space because we were prototyping the design. We are engaged not only in graphic design, but also in industrial design. Therefore, we needed an office with additional premises in which we could place our machines and equipment. In our reality, it is extremely difficult to find an office where you could do prototyping, woodworking, metalworking. We found such a room in Belarus. Then we didn’t have enough time to create prototypes. And we abandoned these projects, but decided to stay in this office. We spent 4 years in it, doing our own projects. Then one day there was a fire.
About project implementation
Before that, we planned to make an NFT project in the office. Not that kind of plan. We studied the NFT world, what is happening in it, what is relevant, what is being sold, what is not being sold, what actions are needed to promote the project, but the fire was ahead of our plans. And we basically did not have the opportunity to return to our NFT project, which we originally planned. Everything burned out for us: disks, monitors – in general everything with which we could work. When we were excavating, looking for disks, we thought that perhaps some information had survived. Because there were all our projects, all our work. We have not stopped any of our projects. As we had projects in progress, they have remained. We also thought that something might have survived. And when we found some details it was a great pain for us. When we were looking for the fruits of our labors, the idea came to us that since we wanted to do something in the NFT direction, we decided to collect everything we could find. They collected it all with tears in their eyes. And then they photographed right on the street near this cottage. Then we cut it all off, processed it graphically and made such a small project. And everything was done, everything was very simple. On the second day of our excavations in this cottage, we found a white countertop in this cottage. We collected everything we found in a box. And we took pictures of everything on the white tabletop on the iPhone. Then these photos were processed. But in principle, everything was done and filmed in half an hour. We learned about NFT about 2 months ago. We were covered. We understood how many opportunities there are in all this, that our profession resonates with this. We can, even need to, try ourselves in this. We have worked on several projects that we have prepared for NFT. But all the information remained only in our head, nothing was saved on the disks. We tried to restore the media, but we were immediately told that these disks could only be taken to the trash can.
Presumably, it was a short circuit, but we were never given a final answer. This is a fairly long-term process.
How did you get the idea?
We are constantly photographing something. The process itself calms us down. And the very process of collecting things in a heap, photographing was distracting. When we photographed all of this, and then, in the car on the way home, one of us said: “Why not register all this in NFT?” The decision came spontaneously.
What sites have you chosen to host?
First, we asked for an invite to Foundation, then to SuperRare. But it soon became clear that there was a huge queue, and we did not want to delay it. In the end, we agreed on what we will post on the open site Opensea. No ads were paid for. Posted only in their social networks, on their accounts. Not to say that they are very large. Instagram, Facebook. Artyom has 30,000 subscribers there, Konstantin has 17,000. And somehow they tried it on their own. Since we now have a very limited budget, in view of the fact that we need to purchase equipment from scratch. We do not have the financial ability to invest in such additional promotion on some sites, platforms.
We cannot say that sales were significant. But they made us happy. The first sale took place the next day. We talked on the phone with a Belarusian journalist. She asked about one of the lots – burnt white crocs. It took 15-20 minutes after our conversation, and we bought these crocs. The first thing we thought was that the journalist had somehow influenced this sale. We called her, asked if she might be somehow involved in this purchase. She said no, but congratulated her from the bottom of her heart. The first purchase by an unknown person was encouraging. We were very happy and it was unexpected. We did it, ticked the box, and continued to work further. And then it turns out that it is also for sale. It was nice for us.
At the moment we have sold three lots, there is no secret in this, this is public information. On Opensea you can see what lots are sold, who is the buyer, there is nothing secret. These are a chair, a typewriter (small bugatti) and Artyom’s crocs. I must also say that buyers re-displayed these lots for 12 and 50 ethers, respectively.
About the project goals
However, we did not have a goal to cover all costs with the help of the new project. This became a kind of starting point, after which we began to buy computers, furniture, and rent a new comfortable office. We hope that it will be safer, although we no longer really believe that everything is so safe. The publication itself was important for us because we ourselves faced the loss of information. Loss of information for a designer is a fairly common occurrence. And not only for designers. And we wanted to show that we have now reset to zero. And to support those who have already gone through it. Also so that they understand what is happening to us. It’s a pretty human story. We have had quite a lot of feedback from different countries. We put the project on behance and on Instagram and it turned out that the loss of information is not such a rare case. We got quite a few tips about cloud servers. The captains of evidence often asked us why we do not have a cloud server, and we do not store information there. It happens that designers, especially in our specifics of work, need information here and now. It is not always convenient to download gigabytes of textures from a cloud server, and some models, when you work with it 24/7. And very often information is stored on the system unit or on the computer on which you directly work. Not all projects can be accessed from a cloud every second. Therefore, the topic is quite relevant. Many people wrote to us words of gratitude. I think that we will continue to do NFT projects. It’s just that even within the framework of this project, we did not know a lot. We learned a lot about promotion. The guys who work in these areas told a lot of things. On each project you learn something. We also learned a lot on this project. That everything can burn out in one day. And to the point that which is much better. Something like this.
Why do you associate such a high price for your NFTs?
This is a pretty human project. Resale is, in principle, NFT’s policy. It’s like the securities that you have. And on which you can earn in the future. This is the NFT policy.
Are you planning any other NFT projects?
Are planning. The first one was introductory. Each of us has ideas for a common project. We will spread it as a team, as with this project. We are now + – stabilizing, recovering from problems and making up time for current projects. We have a lot to do on the current work. And we will definitely try, because this is a new direction, which in any case will affect people in the creative environment and the sooner you go there, the better. You will understand the principle of operation, the principle of NFT mechanics, and so on.