ÉricandMarie

What is the story of your studio ? MG: We met in France during our studies. Afterwards, we continued our educational background in Great Britain for five years in London. Therefore, we quickly began to undertake projects together. We were lucky at the time to be accepted each time in the same schools, the Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Arts. Our professional collaboration is ultimately the logical continuation of our meeting. EG: In France, we thought that we were not enough encouraged to work in groups. In our time, we felt that there was some form of individualism... whereas in England, we started to work fully together very naturally. We finally returned to Paris at the end of our studies in 2002.

What has impressed you the most during your Anglo-Saxon stay ? What was the trigger of this desire to come back here, in France, to start you professional activity ? MG: The difference in pedagogical method was radical for us. At the time, there was no unlimited access to the Internet, which changed everything. It was an eye cast on what was done in small exhibitions, in books... In Lyon there was not much, we were hungry for new discoveries. Then we went to England, where we quickly felt in our element, and where we had the feeling that we can truly express ourselves and do things our own way. EG: In France, before starting a project, I think we had not always the opportunity to go in all directions, to explore things in an unusual way... There was always someone above us to guide us. In England, it is not quite the same system... we are given something to do, then we proceed quite freely referring to the topic, to find a singular visual identity. But we should also demystify this approach, it might turn out to be really great… or not. However at least it is an opportunity to find who you are and discover things sometimes unsuspected. EG: When we returned, I must admit that after a while, it was pretty hard to live in London, psychologically and financially. We wanted to work directly as independents, without working for a time in an agency or a large structure. It is true that it could have been done in London. There was really a big market for small design studios, while in France it was less the case. Today, I feel that students initiate more small studios in France. It was not an easy choice, but it was basically obvious for us. MG: It is true that we took some time to start when we came back to France, but later we were lucky not having to canvass a lot. We had few clients but they have been loyal to us. It took nearly two years to meet really interesting people, like the designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec.

You like to experiment on editorial projects, in particular with the book Brynjar Sigurðarson conducted with Sophie Krier in 2015. Could you speak about this project in a little bit more detail ? EG: Brynjar Sigurðarson is a young Icelandic designer with a real talent and a unique personality. Sophie's concept was to connect his vision with the anthropologist Tim Ingold, to see what could come out from this meeting. There were not much written elements, we worked a lot with images, project photos, drawings… MG: Generally, we like to consider books as objects. This work comes with a vinyl disc, telling the stories of the designer. The book is created without category, without chronology. The research photographs, first works and published objects are assembled without classification. The horizontal perforation which crosses the entire publication, cutting them into two pages and creating image combinations, evokes the designer's tendency to combine different materials. EG: We worked a lot on the editorial part with Sophie Krier. We fully designed the book, participated in its writing... it is in this type of project that we feel most comfortable, handling both content and form. The idea is not only to focus on style, but rather to exploit major elements of the project to lead the design.

You have more than ten years of experience in the field of design. How are you dealing with the constant evolutions of this area year after year ? EG: I think we are all more or less force to rethink our designer status. Nowadays, we can count a large panel of creative people who are able to execute tasks much faster than we would. We feel we are clearly more attracted to the idea of intervening upstream on the content, and finally creating it, rather than simply doing its layout. We don't know what will be design in fifty years, when you think that it is already possible to generate automatic layouts… Local specificities are disappearing, it becomes difficult to identify specific styles, the designer having easy access to a large number of images, a large number of influences. Interview conducted in March 2016 ©ktlg