When you made the cover design for Shift this month, what did you imagine and how did you work on it?

We have worked at several ideas: For us, ‘Shift’ communicates notions of effervecence, of change. ‘Shift’ is also a symbol of diversity and of originality through its publications and its ‘partner links’, because ‘Shift’ shows an overall view of what graphic designers do anywhere in the world.

So we imagine an transformation animation (morphing) between the word ‘Shift’ and a map world. Moreover, we developped the interactions of users could produce different results (his own result, his own ‘shift’ word / map world) with the colored points.

When we realised the animation, first we created the interactive concept (on paper) together, graphic designers and programmer, and after that, graphic designers realised the screen design, and finally the programmer developped the shockwave ‘applet’.

Then we would like to ask about France. What’s hot now?

France always had the reputation to be a country of culture, of knowledge. But it seems that about the graphic creation, France goes nowhere. And it is the same stagnation for multimedia, because most of the graphic design studio do not use it like a new way of creation. But we keep on being in confidence, and we think it is gonna change.

So how about Japan?

We had some cliches about the Japanese in France: the Japanese = camera, high-technology, hard-working people. But because of the web, we know now that Japan is not only that ! The artistic spheres seem to be very open-minded and lively, and we feel it especially through fashion, comtemporary art and music. For example, the japanese students seem to have a very audacious attitude relating the fashion.

What are you interested in most now?

We are trying now to realize personnal projects: exhibitions and some publishings concerning our work. We also would like to create some on-line or network real-time applications where the users can build something together. And we definitely would like to participate in next Gasbook 😉

Who are your favorite visual/graphic designers and sites?

We are of course fond of celebrities like Tomato or The Designer Republic, but we have no favourite.

First of all, our pleasure is to spend time on the web, looking at famous or unknown graphic websites. We always look for new and astonishing things.

This is the last question. Do you have any plans for the near future?

We are thinking about a multimedia exhibition, in which we could associate other progammers, designers, teams, etc… We will tell you about it soon…

Trafik
Address: 3 Place Saint-Vincent, 69001 Lyon, France
trafik.beaune@wanadoo.fr
https://www.lavitrinedetrafik.com