The World of Kuntzel + Deygas | Hypebeast

Interview with Olivier Kuntzel & Florence Deygas

Greetings Olivier and Florence. Can you please tell us a bit about yourselves and your professional background?

We’re Olivier Kuntzel and Florence Deygas, narrative designers. Between the two of us, we’re educated in visual arts for communication and classic movie animation respectively.

Florence: Our atelier is in Paris and is a large tool box with both digital and analog tools. All of our creations start with drawings by Olivier and I. These drawings can just stay as a sketch idea or be the final result of a creation, but it all starts with a hand drawing on paper. Then we work with our crew on computers to make the idea take form into a title sequence, pictures, and design applied on product.

How large is the crew in Paris?

We can host a crew of 8 to 12 freelancers, but it all depends on our current project which sometimes requires various different talents such as graphic designers, CG, filmers and photographers.

Paris has a rich heritage in fashion/fashion design. How do the graphic arts compare to the reception brought from that of fashion?

Florence: It seems like the fashion industry is re-discovering the power of graphic creations. Most of all, visual artists are more hidden behind their creations. The strength of the creation comes from the attitude of the visual creator and because of this, it is similar to the fashion industry who understands how important the fashion designer.

What recent fashion projects have you been involved in?

We recently had strong connections with Azzaro Couture and our story of “Beauty & Beast” was integrated in the collection by Vanessa Seward. For us, graphic creation is meant to be a narrative. To develop a story, in place of making a feature film or publishing a book, or any other media with a beginning, an end, and some conventions on rhythm and format. We like to search for less conventional ways to reach an audience. That’s why we focus on characters, because we can make various creations on various media platforms with them and the whole is drawing an infinite story. This story, you can submerge yourself by the middle or the end, then discover the beginning, it’s not important where you start. The most interesting aspect is to bring “fiction” into reality. So, there’s nothing better than products, objects, stuff you have with you. Our work is to bring life to objects by having our characters crossing paths with reality, and we need reality to incarnate our fiction to empower them. It’s not so far from religion, how the myth and reality needs one another.