françois
chay
 
 

• January 2009
• Spill.net for Issey Miyake Parfums
• Art direction

Issey Miyake Parfums launched their first anti-rinkles cream in 2009. It's based on water from the Kirishima Onsen, a source renowned for its repairing qualities.
My choice was to translate the anti-rinkles effect, the origins and the source by using paper to create a very smooth and zen universe.

With this very first prototype shown to Issey Miyake Parfums, my aim was to reach a liquid, sensitive feeling.
Check it out →

Final homepage.

The menu has a simple ripple effect on mouse over to bring some surprise to the visit.

Screencast showing the whole final project.
Or visit the website →

• March 2009
• Self-initiated project
• Art direction

Gnop is a multiplayer game designed for the Gobelins' open days.
Our goal was to retain people attention very fast, so we created this based on games everybody knows (pong, table football ...) and by using a inovative setup. The 5 screens are synchronized so that 2 or 4 people can play at the same time.

The two players at the extreme left and right hit the ball, the players on the 2nd and the 4th screens can change the trajectory and the screen in the middle is neutral. Bonuses and maluses appear there randomly (command inversion, bigger/smaller racquet ...)

The whole thing was produced in less than a week so we were not sure if it would work but it turned out to be a big success.

These two kids stayed there nearly an hour and a half. Their parents had a hard time making them leave.

This project was done with :


David Miège
— graphic designer

Léo Chéron
— developer (multi-screens synchronisation)

Grégoire Divaret
— developer (physics guru)

Paul Orzoni
— sound designer

• June 2008
• School project
• Design & AS3 Development

This project is about Andy Goldsworthy and his work.
Since he works mainly with nature, the main challenge was to translate a sensitive feeling to a multimedia project. For that, I chose to work on 3 aspects of his work : the time, the flows & the energy.
See the conception document (in french)

Project's screencast.
It doesn't include the tangible part with the arduino (yes, I managed to burn my computer's USB ports mixing with electronics ...)
Give a try to the funky navigation here →

Each approach changes the way to discover the artworks.
For instance, if Energy is chosen, then the faster the user moves his mouse, the faster the current work is destroyed, replaced by a new one. The disappearance of one work is just a way to move forward.

Each part also have a specific loading related to its meaning :
Library = lights
Time = sand
Flow = water
Energy = fire

Actionscript & Photoshop are fun but you just can't do everything with that.

Every action on the website had an effect on the sculpture. For instance, the sculpture would turn from green to blue, to red, depending on the speed of the visitors' mouses.

• June 2009
• School Project
• Art Direction & AS3, AIR Development

Kune is an interactive tactile system for collaborative work meetings. Our research is directed towards the organization of ideas in the professional environment.

Today, people working on a project tend to be more and more scatered all over the world (clients, freelancers ...), which means that information is dispatched everywhere and taht there are lots of different medias. This makes the understanding and the storage complicated, especially when the project last for a long time.The question we wanted to answer was :

How to optimise the collaborative design process and keep a trace of the evolution ?

The whole thesis can be downloaded here (266 pages but in french)

The logo reflect Kune's final aim : to make the ideas stronger.

We chose to develop an interactive whiteboard because it was easy to implement in companies seeing the limited hardware that was necessary : 1 projector, 2 cameras & 1 pen.
No ready-made and cheap solution existed so we worked on a new one. We just have to put the two cameras at the bottom to detect the hands position and then every object can be manipulated.
It's not very stable yet, but the whole software part works.

We offer tools to write. Every letter is analysed and translated for the program to understand what's going on.

Some basic drawing tools permit to sketch.

All the ideas can be assembled in different ways and every group can be opened at any moment.

The user can apply different styles in order to keep everything clear.
In the end, a report can be generated.

One of the many problems we faced was the random projector quality. I spent a lot of time reading, testing solutions and making choices.
For instance, when one idea is marked as important, instead of a drop shadow we use the complementary color in order to make it vibrate.

Before starting a meeting, it has to be prepared. We designed and realized a small widget in order to organize projects.
The screencast shows the creation of a new Project (Touran), how documents can be added by drag&drop and how to create meetings. Everything is saved in the widget can then be used on the board.

This screencast shows the different features included in Kune.
First, a client's mail is imported and the main ideas are extracted straight to the board. Once everything is organized, the user writes new ideas. The "red quarter" seems interesting so images coming from Google Image are included.
Groups are created and given different styles so that the whole scene is perfectly clear.
Finally, a report is generated.

You should definitely check the web version ! (kinda buggued but it's a fast adaptation to a monotouch system)

This one was a big project since we spend a whole year on it, analyzing the professional needs, storyboarding, designing, fighting with electronics and crappy projectors ...
The others lads involved in it :
Paul Orzoni
— graphic designer

Céline Petit
— graphic designer & illustrator

Mickaël Tuitel
— electo-developer & project manager

Grégoire Divaret
— amazing developer

• Mai 2009
• School Project
• Art Direction (and binding!)

To present our project, we made this book.
The pdf can be downloaded here (in french only)

Since we were working on conception and how projects are made, we decided not to crop our book and to leave the marks.

For all the documentation parts such as wireframes, organigrams ... we used a smaller format so that the reader can have easily a fast overview of the project by reading only the large format pages.
If he wants to know more about the details then he can read also the annexes.

• August 2008
• Issey Miyake Parfums
• Design & AS3 Development

This was the first project I was in charge of at Spill.net.
In 1990, Shiro Kuramata designed several bottle shapes for the L’Eau d’Issey bottle. Years of research enabled the technical achievement of just one of these bottles.
For Christmas 2008, Issey Miyake paid homage to Shiro Kuramata by bringing to life 2,500 numbered, limited-edition bottles.

The homepage used the terrazos from the package to create a navigation based on the colors.

It was also the first time I was able to take part in the product shooting.

• June 2009
• Self initiated project
• Art Direction

For my freelance activity I needed some business cards.
I wanted something a bit different so what I did was to print them a first time on some thick paper.

Then I sticked some Post-its on it and reprinted them.

Finally, I cutted them with a lot of love.

This way, i have double-layered cards. The first layer (the post-it) can be removed and sticked to the side of a screen for instance.

This way the client remembers to call me back when in need (well, that's my plan at least).
And he still have a classic card to keep in his wallet.

• Mai 2007
• Self Initiated Project
• Design

"Demain ?" means "Tomorrow ?" in french. It was a project aiming to make people think about global warming.

I cut the letters in leaves.
Then I waited for them to dry out and took pictures at regular intervals.
As time went by, the letters shrinked making the word nearly unreadable, like a metaphor of the future.

Finally, I sticked posters in the street.

Some less serious stuffs to finish with.
I love to travel and draw, so here are some pages extracted from my sketchbooks. The last one was made when in Sweden (in winter, not a good idea).