ËvoluPlay

I was introduced to this project by architecture studio MAPS in autumn 2025. The concept, set by founders Sandy and Kévin: a cosy, elegant space to play and have a drink.

The brief was explicit about the trap to avoid: the usual “game arena” look, all flashing neon and hard edges. They wanted instead warm lighting and light play, chic materials with wood and greenery, and a bold, contrasted colour story (terracotta, deep green, black, warm neon, mirrors).

Concept

The brief immediately brought Art Nouveau to mind — a movement I already love, and proof that a strong stylization can age without dating.

I shared the early direction with the architecture team, and they were just as excited to push Art Nouveau into architecture and neon. Together we coined the pitch for the client presentation: “Néon Art Nouveau.” In parallel, I also mocked up an alternative, a trendier “Biophilic” style.

At the first presentation, Sandy and Kévin fell for Néon Art Nouveau immediately — the alternative barely got a look. I rarely felt a creative direction land so precisely with a client’s own vision. A great first note to build the rest of the project on together with the client.

Logo Creation

The starting brief for the logo had three specific needs from the clients:

• the tagline written inside it, “Le plaisir de jouer, l’art de trinquer” (play hard, drink well)
• show off the diaeresis on the first Ë of ËvoluPlay
• a preference for an italic text

As usual, I worked it in a funnel: two or three directions, several variations each, very draft and raw, without pre-judging any of them — the only goal at this step is to find where the client wants to go.

The italic idea didn’t survive contact with the upright alternatives; the client dropped it when they saw the straight versions side by side. They quickly had a favorite one, the one I started to work more:

The creative ping-pong game was so interesting! Two changes came out of that process:

1. A legal one. Remembering the constraints of the French loi Évin on alcohol advertising, I flagged that the slogan and the cocktail glass could end up on public-facing signage, which isn’t allowed because it promotes drinking. Best moment to fix it, before validation and asset variations — Sandy and Kévin changed it to “Le plaisir de jouer, l’art de se retrouver” (the joy of play, the art of coming together).

2. A design one. Through the back-and-forth, the cocktail glass motif in the wordmark evolved into a monogram, E + P, seen as a portal, a bridge, a pause — which became the icon anchoring the whole system.

After proposal and a last creative ping-pong game, the final logo took its final form.

Illustrations

Once the shape of the logo was validated, the next job was building out a full illustration set — one per activity room. Like this, every part of the brand had enough visual material to draw from: signage, the bar design, posters, web icons, everything. My rule of thumb: if I can find inspiration for the restroom signage, and if the result is OK, the identity has enough potential to carry the whole project!

I proposed three sub-directions to unify the compositions of the pictures: Tarot Cards, Posters, and Stained Glass.

“The vegetal” was selected, and the “Stained Glass” style became the favorite. First drawings, inspired and composed with a mix of royalty free (Dover books found on Mercari), CC0 sources and my own illustrations.

Colored with the new validated color model:

For every illustration — bar, karaoke, arcade, pinball, basketball, restrooms — the goal was consistent storytelling with an Art Nouveau style. I wanted to give the same feeling as a video game “level selection” moment, rendered like stained glass.

From this point the identity kept building out: posters, icons, signage, and the first “master” renders for print and web — always keeping in mind the same goal of one coherent art direction across every medium.

Webdesign

For this project I wanted to focus on Art Direction and design rather than web integration. I joined a French creative collective named SuperPartant last year, and it was the perfect occasion to connect Sandy and Kévin with Intro, a creative studio in Le Havre (also a SuperPartant member) — evoluplay.fr is theirs to run; the design shown here is my neoyume.com mockup.

Social Network

I provided a social network kit with profile picture, banner and reel frame.

3D Arch Viz

As a bonus, I also lent a hand on the architecture side with MAPS. Their Revit-to-FBX exports are a joy to receive and make it much easier to visualise the space. It was a good excuse to use tools I love but don’t get to use for pure graphic work: Blender and Twinmotion for the 3D previews.

FBX from Revit went into Blender, then UV unwrap and design with Illustrator; FBX import in Twinmotion, basic material textured and rendered in Twinmotion, customized material/texture on Blender, imported in Twinmotion:

Epilogue

I’m sincerely grateful for this project. I felt it like every Art direction should be for me — a creative ping-pong game between the client’s needs and feedback, and my creative and technical skills. This project gathers so much of what I’ve learned through my 20+ years of experience: concept work, 2D, print design, web design, 3D, and the interpersonal soft skills I’ve sharpened over time.

Huge thanks to Sandy and Kévin for your trust, your kindness, your communication, our Google Meet calls stuck between French and Japanese time. Thank you for your ideas, this wonderful project and a genuinely unique creative ride. Thank you to everyone who worked on the ËvoluPlay project — seeing the result in reality on the video call was magic!

Special thanks to Intro Agency for the website integration and maintenance and all the communication we had, and to the MAPS Architecture team for the project introduction, our discussions, deep creative thinking, wonderful Revit FBX files, and their amazing work on the architecture designs (I just love that bar!).

Seeing a project stay this faithful to the original creative intent, with a happy client at the other end, is the best reward there is. Next on the list, if I can get back to France for it: a trip to the gates of Saint-Étienne to photograph the real place!