ACMÉ

What is the story of ACMÉ ? When we first met we both worked as freelancers, with no agency experience. We crossed paths on a project that got us to work together afterwards. We had quite complementary graphic universes and skills that crossed, then we decided to set up this structure together. When you are a freelancer, it is always more difficult to work without exchanging and to stand back towards yourself. After many years this can become a bit complicated to work alone. ACMÉ is very enriching for us every day. Thanks to that we work faster and above all, we work better.

Your settling down as a duo is quite recent. Do you want to keep this studio on a human scale or get bigger ? It's going to be a year since we moved in this studio and two and a half years that we created ACMÉ. We do not ask ourselves such questions for now. But if we didn't want to work in an agency, it is because we enjoy working in a structure on our scale. We like to follow our projects from A to Z, knowing all our stakeholders, be they developers, printers ... We don't believe that it is fully compatible with a company with a too big structure.

We notice that your website presents several fonts. Are these creations produced for specific projects or is it a fully-fledged will ? This is something quite apart. We still created fonts for specific projects, for example we recently made the identity of PNY, a burger restaurant at Temple, for which we have made a special font. But we do not consider ourselves as 'typographers'. We manage, but assuming the status is another job. We are more dedicate to display types when projects enable it.

Do you think you have a specialization field ? We are adapting to the demands. For now, we focus more on print media and visual identity projects, but we are more than open to different projects. We like to diversify. We love illustration, we try one's hand at product design, we also made art direction for photography this year... it was really interesting. All areas of design intersect, designers that restrict themselves only to the pure graphic design are quite unusual. When we carry out projects with clients, we usually show them mood boards before beginning the creative part of the work. In these boards, it is possible to find some photography, fashion or even architecture imagery... everything is connected in one way or another. Graphic design isn't a domain apart as one can sometimes suggest. It seems that this idea of 'versatility' in the practice of graphic design is settling more and more in France. Having a small company like ours, we have the opportunity to experiment and to keep time to test new things, to explore other fields. We think we would be bored doing only graphic design. For the visual identity of the burger restaurant for example, we had the chance to work with a craftsperson that creates neon signs. We like to discover new expertise. The human dimension is also really important for us. We repeat that we don't want to extend because we like being close to people. Our work being more oriented in printed matters also reflects that, we like things involving the tactile feel, the carnal, the contact. Interview conducted in October 2015 ©ktlg