Meet Oleg + Roxanna Mikhailik: Designers / Makers

We had the good fortune of connecting with Oleg + Roxanna Mikhailik and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Oleg + Roxanna, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
We pride ourselves on being very connected with the work we do and the process of its creation. In a way I feel like we don’t actually have work-life-balance since the two are so tightly intertwined for us. It wasn’t always the case, but we always wished that it was. When we started project.rotate we kept our shop in a creative warehouse subdivision in Vernon, which was just far enough away to provide a buffer between work and home, but it actually wasn’t really working out for us. By its nature, our business relies heavily upon being able to flush out ideas and make prototypes quickly. And since ideas sometimes come to you in the middle of the night, having your materials and tools nearby really comes in handy. So around April 2020, we moved to a slightly bigger unit and were able to bring our operation under the same roof. We like to think that our shop is as much a fixture of our home, as the work we do is a fixture of our lives.

What should our readers know about your business?
We have been described (I feel very correctly) as a micro-local business. Everything from the materials we source to where our things are made to where they ship from is all within LA. The only exceptions being the clock mechanisms and our shipping boxes. I think this is a bit part of what makes us stand out. We also take a lot of pride in making things by hand. Project Rotate began partially out of mutual interest in designing small things. Both Roxanna and I come from the world of architecture where, depending on the size of the firm you’re in, you may be quite disconnected from the buildings you actually work on. Meanwhile architecture school is a very hands-on ordeal. You do a lot of work by hand and then graduate into an industry which is much more supervision and team-management based. So for me, Project.Rotate started out as a creative outlet. Roxanna came from a much smaller firm, with smaller but more sophisticated projects – from boutique stores and restaurants down to the utensils and fixtures used in them. Having pooled our ambitions and strengths together we realized that we cover a pretty wide array of skills all of which can be applied to designing and building physical things. To this day I still think this is one of our strongest assets. There are many challenges to running a small operation, and then others on top of those that are specific to a product design business. Because we are the only members of project.rotate (human ones anyway – we have two shop cats), responsibilities and tasks are usually shared – if one is unavailable, the other must be able to step in and take care of the work on hand. What helps a lot is communication and exchange of skill and knowhow. Each of us is better at something than the other. We factor this into our operations.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
hahaha – so wait, during the pandemic or after? In case of the former we’re kicking back and having drinks on my roof and watching the helicopters cris-cross the sky. Rox and I have an immense advantage of being in urban LA. I always feel like this is the only part of Southern California that actually has a third dimension. The city is a labyrinth of concrete, glass, neon, color, sound, and curious sights. It expands in all directions, including UP, and there’s no shortage of ways to experience it, all you need is a right crew. I think the best way to do Los Angeles is actually on a bicycle. True it isn’t the most bikable city in the world by far, however that is balanced perfectly by an actually half-decent underground metro, which can take you anywhere from downtown to North Hollywood. Throw in the adjacent lightrail lines and suddenly everything from azusa to Santa Monica is within reach without needing a drivers license! A biking adventure is always ideal in a small wolfpack of friends. It’s hard to come up with a prescriptive itinerary – but the good news is that you probably won’t need to. There is an absolute myriad of things to do and see where I live. I would say Koreatown makes perfect sense for dinner – be it the bustling Chapman Plaza, which has now been converted into a pedestrian-only ordeal, or a cozy dimly-lit location with some grit to it like Dan Sun Sa. Downtown has some great offerings too, but I feel its biggest asset is its three-dimensionality. Some of the best places to grab a drink, enjoy some music and a view are either on rooftops, or actually deep underground. The Edison, the Perch, and in case you like more quiet atmosphere and pressurized spaces – the revolving lounge at Westin Bonaventure. There are speakeasy’s, a fantastic maze of books called the Last Bookstore (has an actual maze made of book shelves on the second floor)… I could go on for hours, but in a nutshell, for a one day ordeal you don’t need to go far from where I am sitting right this moment to have a time of your life. What’s that? oh, i thought you were leaving tomorrow! Next week? uuuum yeah that’s no prob at all. A week-long itinerary would probably require a car. Maybe even with some ground clearance because – it’s Roadtrip time. The great Californian trifecta is being able to visit the beach, play in some snow in the mountains, and drive across the desert all in a single day. Obviously it can be done over a longer timeframe. Some of the most surreal outdoor experiences in CA are free – we could camp at the trona pinnacles for a day or two, visit the mountains, but ideally we would take a 10 hour drive to San Francisco along the 1. I’ve done that once and have never had time to repeat this drive – opting for the 5 or the 101 instead, which is a shame because the 1 is pretty freakin’ amazing. I would like to add my personal favorite outdoor pastime in CA – head over to Llano on a day with bushy clouds over the mountains. Ain’t a damn thing to do in Llano, except there is an airfield there called Crystalaire, which is home to a glider academy. When you’re there – get towed to 4000 ft by an airtractor and be a bird in flight for 40 minutes or so. You will never see the sky the same again. Do it at least once in your life. But who am I? Ask Roxanna – my partner in crime, who unlike me had actually grown up in Los Angeles. As such she possesses a much wider knowledge of the city and things to do in it. Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
People have been overwhelmingly supportive on all fronts – family, friends, colleagues at our day jobs… If I had to single out specific folks, I would be remiss not to acknowledge the encouragement and inspiration we constantly receive from our mutual friend, and a brilliant designer Yuki Kawae. After seeing the original few clocks we’ve produced, Yuki was the first to suggest that we turn it into a small business. He is also the man behind one of our most successful products – the Kawaerake series of zen garden rakes which we did in collaboration with him.

Website: projectrotate.com

Instagram: project_rotate

Twitter: projectrotate