Meet Paul&Thomas, the playfully precise studio built on a chance encounter

Paul&Thomas is a dynamic studio hailing from Rennes, consisting of Paul Faure and Thomas Hanus. Both with a background in graphic design, the pair met while studying at the prestigious ENSBA Lyon, and their journeys merged again after meeting by chance: “We lost contact but ended up unintentionally sharing a workspace in Rennes,” Paul tells us.

With a strong focus on structure, typography, plasticity, and colour, the work of Paul&Thomas is natural, meandering, and organic, yet controlled and contained. Dialogue is a prominent anchor of the studio’s approach – it underpins the fluidity of Thomas’ typography and Paul’s use of plasticity – all gathering into a playfully precise output.

“After juggling alone as freelancers for a few years, we found decision-making more fluid and serene as a duo,” Thomas says, coming together after having collaborated on respective projects which “rapidly turned into a willingness to establish a common studio”. Now sitting within the cultural industries in both private and public sectors, Paul&Thomas work across book design, identities, wayfinding, web design, and exhibition design.