Stéréo Buro

What is the story of Stéréo Buro? Everything started with a story of friendship born during our studies at the ENSAD in Strasbourg. Then, we faced the reality of the world of work and got both difficulties to join a compagny. We were seeking for independence. United we stand, divided we fall. Being friends before being colleagues, in 2015 we decided to create our own studio and support each other in our professional experience. Stéréo Buro was originally founded by Christelle Ménage and Diane Boivin. It is a duo (in stereo) which mainly experiment typography and illustration. We were two Aries dreamers, that needed a Scorpio, with a strong Latin character, to coordinate our activities and expand our projects. Six months after the studio foundation, Silvia Dore joined the adventure and became the ‘interference in stereo’. Since then, Christelle has chosen to take another direction. She is still in the creative field, but she is now working in a center for young autistic adults whose signage pictograms were designed by Silvia and Diane. Today, Silvia and Diane continue the adventure by opening up to bigger collaborations, sometimes with illustrators and photographers. — Q> You work in the Paris Print Club, how does this multi-talented place inspire your practice? The Paris Print Club is a contemporary creation workshop mainly dedicated to printmaking, where are printed illustrations of the contemporary and underground scene. It is a place in a basement, with four different levels, a strolling space both sinuous and very spacious. This place mixes a lot of artists and illustrators with whom we collaborate occasionally for the magazine Intramuros that we are designing. We are working in the mezzanine of the entrance, in a small wooden chalet where we are six women (graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, set designer…) No need to tell you that we help each other, laugh and chat all day long.

Do you think the place of women is fairly represented in the graphic design scene? It’s on its way, it’s time for action. At the beginning of our journey we had many concerns. The education we had at the ENSAD in Strasbourg was 100% masculine. Moreover, 80% of the exhibitions organised by the French graphic design institutions (Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Festival de Chaumont, USG Le Havre...) present male artists (these statistics come from subjective observations). Some of our male elders warned us that it would be hard in 2015, with the French critical economic situation and our status as women. Women are often seen as more fragile and less able to conceptualize than men, it is clearly the inheritance of a very old patriarchal culture. We notice that virility, associated with righteousness and rigor, remains a privileged relationship between a client and a graphic designer. With our male clients, we are sometimes confronted both to a power and infantilization relationship, and to a seduction one which was clearly not needed. This creates tension and discomfort. During such times, we have learned to subtly reverse these power relationships and use seduction to go where we want to bring the client. In the end, we managed to substitute this old balance of power between men and women with a new healthier one; considering only skills, no question of gender.

Which of your projects took the most time to complete? DB: The redesign of the layout of the international design magazine Intramuros was a long fight of four months with discussions, quotes, feedbacks on creations, tough and intense negotiations. Silvia expressed her skills in communication in this project. It is not just about design. It is about embodying your ideas, defending them, arguing, being a good speaker. The identity of the art gallery owner Ségolène Brossette is another project that has been long to complete. We spontaneously canvassed her one year ago and we are progressing in a relationship of trust and increasing mutual respect. Interview conducted in February 2018 ©ktlg