Meet music-obsessed graphic designer François Boulo

French graphic designer and art director François Boulo, 22, grew up in Brittany but moved in Paris earlier this year. “I wanted to discover what kind of inspirations, opportunities, and way of life the city has to offer,” he told us. “Today I’m working for a company as a full-time web and print designer and doing freelance work in my free time.”

For as far back as he can remember, François has been experimenting through different creative outlets. “Since I was a child I was drawing a lot and I kind of always knew I wanted to get a job where I could express myself and create,” he remembers. “I also remember in high school with friends, we were doing crazy surreal visuals on our computers, and sharing them online, printing them as stickers and sticking them everywhere in the school. It became pretty big and we even had a little exposition. It was just for fun, but this is a good memory about one of my first graphic design experimentations.”

These days, François finds his main source of inspiration in music. “I always see strong connections between visual arts and music, through record covers, posters, artists unique universes… working with labels/artists is what I enjoy the most, this is where I feel like I can be free and really inspired.”

Fittingly, his portfolio is packed with sleekly-executed work for clients such as Stadtmitte Label, Culture Bars-Bars festival, Red Bull France, L’armoire Universelle and many more. He tells us that the last project he loved working on was the new identity of French techno and tech-house label Solide Records, based in Angers. “I did new record covers and posters,” he explains. “Again it’s about the relation between music and visuals: they have a really dark and strong sound which I tried to represent on the covers.”

The graphic designer’s passion for music similarly echoes through his current project. “I’m working for an artist named Marinsky who is releasing his first project,” he explains. “So I designed a few covers for different songs and this is a really different style than Solide Records, it’s an illustrative work, surrealist, colourful. It’s not techno anymore, it’s disco pop-like music, and this is what I enjoy: working in such different universes.”

“When I have the total confidence of the client, and I’m free to try new things,” François notes in summary. “Music artists used to know what they want, they already have a sound identity, and it’s so exciting when they let you free to interpret it visually.”