“Learning and improving never stops, and it can feel like you’ve reached a key point in your career, whether in terms of experience or the quality of your work, but this feeling is fleeting,” says Anaïs Rallo.

For the French graphic designer and illustrator, a determination to push the boundaries of her practice has seen her turn her hand to posters, album covers, murals, logos and more over the years. Inspired by nature, music and, more specifically, Japanese prints and the psychedelic imagery of the 70s, there’s a dreamlike quality that infuses much of her work.

While Rallo always knew she wanted to pursue design professionally, her choice of graphic design was initially more a question of practicality. “I knew there wouldn’t be any math involved, unlike product or space design,” she laughs.

After finishing her graphic design masters in her home city of Rennes, she took an intentional approach to building up her practice and network, initially focusing on the music industry with projects including posters for festivals and album artwork for independent artists.

She then looked to the cultural sector more broadly, collaborating with the Imagerie art centre in Lannion and the city of Rennes on design projects, as well as working on illustration-led commissions for cultural institutions across Europe.

Illustration has always featured in the designer’s wider practice, but in her commercial work she tries to continually push herself to different places stylistically. “When I’m working on a new project, I always try to do something really new. Even if there are certain recurring elements in my imagery or colour palette, I try to constantly renew myself, which keeps my mind sharp and creative,” she explains.

While Rallo has less time for personal projects these days, she notes that they continue to play a vital part in her work, whether it’s making silkscreen prints or collaborating with another creative on a new fanzine. “They are important in the sense that they allow me to step outside the classic work framework, to improve or explore certain things.”

In the same vein, the creative pursuit that the designer comes back to time and time again in her spare time is drawing. Her sketchbooks, which she’s obsessively kept since she first started out, have become her equivalent of a diary.

“Drawing has always been a moment of escape and meditation,” she says. “Even if I draw a lot less than I used to, getting back to my notebook to draw is also a way of not forgetting the basis of all my progress to date. When things are going too fast, drawing helps me to slow down the pace and restore a bit of balance! It also helps me to keep trusting myself, a little personal challenge of sorts, perhaps even a little therapeutic.”

Reflecting on her own journey, Rallo is the first to admit that the creative industries are an increasingly challenging place to forge a career in nowadays. “There are certain parameters you can work on and others that are clearly out of your hands,” she says.

“Sometimes you approach people, they don’t get back to you; you don’t win an open call you wanted and you don’t know why; you print a design you love but the public feedback isn’t as positive as you’d hoped. What keeps me from losing myself is staying within my own graphic universe. I know that not everyone will like it, and I’ve learned to accept that. The important thing is to enjoy myself as much as when I started.”

anaisrallo.com