Sometimes, on the odd occasion, as creatives all know, you can get pretty lucky with ideas. In a recent project for Belgium’s largest fine food store Rob The Gourmets’ Market, the studio took on the packaging design for its first craft beer collaboration with Brussels Brewery En Stoemelings. “In the case of Rob beer, the architecture of the brewery’s building was so strong that it seemed unavoidable to me, there was no need for research, the idea seemed to be right there in front of me”, Matthieu says.
Adjacent to this visual identity work, a large part of the studio’s practice surrounds something seemingly quite niche: naming. “Here too, we work in an almost academic, scientific way,” Matthieu shares. But instead of visual motifs and images we investigate linguistics, etymology, art history, and literature.” Most important of all is finding a name for brands and projects that “tells their story”, says Matthieu.
While it’s clear the designer was initially drawn to graphic design for print and publishing, the value of storytelling has always stuck with the studio over the years no matter what tools they find themselves working on: “motion design, social first-identities, branding and now AI has arrived,” Matthieu says. “You have to be able to master and offer all these areas of expertise to your clients if you want to survive as an independent studio. I find that exciting,” he ends, “but despite the impression that the number of media and techniques to master has increased considerably, we’ve always recognised that finding a strong idea, a coherent narrative to tell, is still at the heart of what we do, and that’s what matters most.”