DESCRIPTION:
Catherine Guiral attended the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris and then California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles. Now she lives and works in Paris as a designer and teacher, and as partner of a year-old collaborative platform called vi-vi. The name refers to visuel-vision a French/English phrase that Guiral believes captures the substance of its work. “Vi-vi’s work is like what Henri Bergson once described as la pensée de l’action, the thought behind action,” she says. “In the end, vi-vi’s projects are anchored on my understanding that the concepts of vision and visuel are bound to one another. The visual that I produce [book, poster, website, video] is a result of the meeting of a client’s vision and my own.” While Guiral would “hate to be specialized in anything,” she admits her educational background pushes her toward print design. Her clients tend to hail from the Parisian art world and include the Academie Charpentier and the Iraqui Gallery.

VOICE:
“In The West Wing I’ve always preferred the speechwriter to the president. Being a graphic designer enables me to be a vision maker.” As a student in Paris, Guiral made political posters. Now, while she acknowledges what she terms “the difficulty of unbiased politics,” she thinks artists and designers “should not be afraid to dive into reality.” Her personal works reflect the “perhaps naïve belief I have that participation, in whatever form, does matter.”

DISTINCTIVE MARKINGS:
Guiral is a chronic restaurant-tablecloth doodler. Her design-related tics include what she calls a “primitive, abusive, and instinctive use of Photoshop,” and a love of bubbles.

HABITAT:
Guiral’s studio is in Paris but she travels extensively. She describes her tiny studio space: “The walls are covered with Post-Its. There’s an Urban Outfitters lamp on the ceiling. And the radio is constantly on.” She adds, “[Georges] Perec might have called this space a ‘working cell’ but I prefer to call it my design playground.”

SPOTTED BY:
Michael Worthington, co-director of the Graphic Design Program, California Institute of the Arts: “She is pretty amazing and can draw like nobody’s business—she has fantastic sketchbooks.”

CONTACT:
+33.6.8686.5419 | cathguiral@wanadoo.fr

Written by Alice Twemlow