Skate culture and street art steers graphic designer and illustrator Antoine Laurent

Before graphic designer and illustrator Antoine Laurent came onto the creative scene, he was a carpenter that spent quite a lot of his spare time skateboarding. He was, and still is, enamoured by skate culture, street art and graffiti. Bring in clean lines and grids and you get a tight and traditional graphic design style with a bit more of an unusual edge, or as Antoine puts it: “a combination of precision and creative freedom”.

Originally from Normandy and now based in Paris, the designer’s more unconventional background usually leads him straight into hands-on research when tackling a project. Reminiscent of his days spent constructing or building, the designer is very tactile, always “sketching, exploring paper archives or creating collages, before moving into the digital stage”, he tells It’s Nice That. His practice has always been grounded in the kinds of materials we use and how we use them. His aim with all these tangible tools and techniques? To create visuals that are “strong, clear and timeless” for identities, illustrations and graphic assets, both on the page and on screen.

The designer’s portfolio tends to veer toward the fashion and the cultural sector. He finds inspiration for this kind of design work in “1950s and 1970s design, architectural photography, and Parisian libraries and archives”. Aiming to balance his more striking visuals with clear and timeless communication, Antoine hopes to make work that quietly captures people’s attention in a “world where imagery is omnipresent”.