‘By escaping the normative universe and trying to find new contexts and emotions I get influenced to create new typography’, says the freshly graduated Graphic and Type Designer, Rémi Volclair (@rembagram). Already boasting a beautiful stack of typefaces in his portfolio, Rémi seems to be drawn to meeting abstraction with typography to envision a new aesthetic for the future. In Rémi’s mind, we’re right on the cusp of a shifting cultural era and, alongside other areas of design, typography has the potential to lead us through to the other side.
‘Typography has a major role in my work because it allows me to accentuate the emotion of a design’, Rémi tells us. ‘The universe we want to convey to the public begins with a coherent typography that lays the foundations for a thoughtful design.’ Originally from Normandy and having spent three years studying near Marseille, Rémi has been working freelance since moving to Stockholm in September.
‘My typographical approach has the goal to open up a future with new aesthetics’ he continues. ‘A future which I believe is not very far away… I think that if we would change a few visual things in our aesthetic universe with a new style, it could be equated to a changed era. It’s the same for any type of design, not just the typography. A universe with a new, more visual communication could tell us that we are entering a new cultural era’.
In pursuit of developing a new aesthetic future and to explore the edges of what he calls our ‘cultural era’, Rémi started World Digital Magazine with his friend, César Granchamp. ‘The purpose of this project is partly our desire to talk about the unexplored part of our world, which is the abstract and digital one. We believe that thanks to the internet we are able to escape the common world to another one, the abstract one. A world whose size and possibilities are unattainable for humanity’, Rémi expands.
‘For us, abstraction is a form of art that takes you to a feeling where only you can judge your awareness of an artwork. Our project right now is to create a community, and Instagram is our starting point. We are also preparing our website where we will present the first digital edition together with artists as Kitasavi, Kushlet, Miruel. The long term goal it is to make printed versions as well.’
Whilst it’ll be interesting to see how World Digital Magazine develops, we’re already in love with Rémi’s typefaces IDAF and Boogue. Inspired by nature, flora and raindrops, Rémi tells us IDAF meets these shapes with an undercurrent of his ideas about futuristic aesthetic styles. ‘I would say that this type is a rather tropical idea where the curves reminds me of the flowers of the seasons’, he tells us. ‘The creation and process was completely hand drawn and then finished on the program Glyphs. I love to combine this naturalistic and lighter typo with a darker and futuristic style.’
Boogue, however, shows off the darker side of Rémi’s style. Differing from IDAF, Boogue has a much colder, more sinister feel. ‘Influenced by the cyber network as well as video games, this typo came out as one of my more harsh, strict and evil ones. It was created entirely on the basis of a shape bank – the shape bank allows you to have direct consistency in your alphabet’, he explains. These typefaces, we hope, will be just the beginnings of Rémi’s explorations of futuristic design aesthetics. We’re fasciated to see where his ideas take him next. Thanks, Rémi!
