Interview: Meet Martin, a Madeo senior designer

Q: Let’s start with you when you were just a kid. What were you like?

I grew up in Saint Etienne, France. I remember I used to draw the character Tintin a lot as a kid. When I was around 7, my parents signed me up to take art lessons with a friend. Our teacher was a retired war veteran who was an illustrator. He taught us classical techniques and watercolors and always painted landscapes, which as a child, I found so boring. I just wanted to draw Dragonball Z!

Q: Is that what got you into art and design school?

Perhaps, but I think I could attribute it more to my time working at a gallery as a teen. I got into street art which was fairly trendy at the time. I didn’t do a lot with spray paint, but I tried a lot of stenciling which was fun. There was this gallery by my house, a very high-end art gallery that had always caught my attention but I felt too intimidated to go in. One evening I was passing by and noticed that they were hiring. I worked up the courage and went in to ask about the job – and got hired! I ended up working in that gallery for 3 or 4 years throughout high school.

Q: How was working at the art gallery?

I had NO idea what I was doing. I was too shy to talk to the gallery visitors. I was also a teenager, so I was partying late on Friday nights and then showing up underslept the next day to the gallery. Nevertheless, it was so much fun being there and the gallery owners really became dear family friends. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I unconsciously learned a lot about art from working there. I discovered a lot of movements in contemporary art that way.

Q: Was it art school that got you into web design?

In school, I did a lot of graphic design and I loved it. I would design stuff for t-shirts, skateboards, and print work. At first, I was really into print. I really loved the tactile nature of it; I liked picking papers, thinking about textures and all the details that go into print. I eventually grew to become more acquainted with web design and built my first website in 2006.

Q: What are some of the things you have designed that still mean something to you now?

There are at least a couple of older projects, from when I used to work for Christian Louboutin that I really like. I worked with a talented illustrator and we designed this concept with birds in patterns, which I then turned into something interactive. We mixed products, patterns, and made users mix and match with a slider function. It was fun and was one of my first real collaborations with developers as well.

Another project that was really cool was when we introduced Beauty at Christian Louboutin. It was a collaboration with a 3D designer to produce day and night environments. It was also a complicated collaboration between design and web development. Figuring out how to work together between 3D experts, developers and doing something new like that was a wonderful challenge.

Q: What is a very recent project that you feel was interesting to work on?

50/50 Climate Project stands out to me because I really pushed the interactions and transitions in the website. I also worked on the branding of the organization with the rest of the team, so we had a free hand to create everything from scratch to define everything for the brand and that made a big difference for the website. I’m also doing more now since we have taken team roles within the organization after we worked on the first project.

Q: What team members do you mostly collaborate with at Madeo?

We are a team of about 15 people and I work a lot with almost everyone, but I especially spend a lot of time with the content strategist on the team; we wireframe together and decide on how the content elements of a website or an app are going to be set. I talk to Catalina – another designer on the team – when I need another designer’s perspective. If I feel stuck, I get advice from our creative director on the direction and on how a concept fits into the rest of the big picture.

Once web development starts, I end up spending a lot of time with different developers on the team. Our head of engineering helps me a lot with overall concepts and the ability to make things happen. I then spend more time with back and forth with the front-end developer working on the project, and sometimes there is more than one front-end Developer, so I work on little details with each one, depending on how simple or complicated the website or app that we’re creating together.

Q: Do you prefer working within a team or as a solo designer?

I prefer working in a team because I trust the people I work with. The difference to me is not about work, but more about the mood. I work best in collaboration with people I trust, and it’s vital for me to be in an environment with a genuine and supportive team. It matters a lot to have that support and overall experience.

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