For graphic designer and activist Jérémie Wostyn (aka Kylab), poster design is a spontaneous and intuitive space

Before exploring the discipline in an expressive and spontaneous way, Jérémie Wostyn, otherwise known as Kylab, entered the world of graphic design as an art director and designer for various advertising agencies. Eventually finding an outlet for his own graphic expression over time, the designer crafts what he calls “old school collages,” incorporating vibrant colours and cut-out forms into his own “logical visual language” — the poster being his most loved format.

Based in Lille, France where he was born, the artist has been working as an educator and freelance graphic designer and illustrator for 15 years, with his work exhibited in various shows and galleries. Jérémie loves to partner with “culturally significant institutions and engaged organisations” in the worlds of music, performing arts and film in this area of his practice. The designer also produces and exhibits personal projects alongside various groups such as Le Collectif Précaire, a collective that he started back in 2006 alongside friends during his time studying at the Cepreco school in Roubaix, France.

For an eclectic style that merges the disciplines of graphic design, illustration and typography, Jérémie has a somewhat simple and minimal approach to work. Using “a flatbed scanner from the 90s, some paper and a fine point black marker” the designer crafts all his compositions by hand before scanning them and reworking them digitally to perfect their vibrant colour palettes.

Jérémie finds the influences for his work in his Algerian roots and his love for “the industrial background” of his hometown, with “its many colours and shapes”. His inspiration is directly drawn from his love for “anything nonsensical, whether it be in visual art or music,” the people he comes across, and “typography, and pop culture as a whole”. All of these influences “organically mix and interact together” he says, to make up his “intuitive, quick-paced and spontaneous” body of graphic work.