Interview with M/M (Paris) — Paris, June 30, 2025
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On June 30, 2025, Léonore Conte and Caroll Maréchal conducted an interview with the French graphic designers M/M (Paris) at their studio.
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M/M (Paris) is a French graphic design studio founded in 1992 by Michael Amzalag (born in 1968 in Paris) and Mathias Augustyniak (born in 1967 in Cavaillon). As early as 1986, Michael acquired an Apple Macintosh and began experimenting with the tool, notably by self-publishing a fanzine called Paris me tue.
In 1989, while both were studying at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs (Ensad) in Paris, they began combining their skills—Mathias focused on drawing, while Michael specialized in image manipulation techniques (notably using the Canon CLC-500 copier)—and started experimenting with graphic objects that blended analog and digital methods.
In 1990, Mathias continued his studies at the Royal College of Art in London, while Michael gained his first experience in layout design at Les Inrockuptibles magazine. As the first French music magazine to use Macs for layout production, the editor-in-chief commissioned Michael to redesign the magazine’s visual and graphic identity—a project he brought Mathias into. This initial commission opened doors for them with Fnac, with whom they began collaborating. This partnership allowed them to quickly acquire high-performance, expensive equipment, including a computer, scanner, and a Video Floppy Disc VF50 (a Canon camera that recorded still video images onto floppy disks).
These production methods streamlined their workflow, enabling faster and more spontaneous output. They began exploring the capture and transcription of reality by combining hand-made elements (drawings, handwriting, etc.) with computer-generated ones (photography, bitmap, etc.), setting themselves apart from the American digital and computer-based aesthetic (such as that of April Greiman).
Their early adoption of computers for graphic design helped them quickly become competitive and establish themselves among the new generation of graphic designers in the 1990s despite strong resistance within the French graphic design community.