Bertrand Lagros de Langeron
Bertrand Lagros de Langeron also known as So Me, is a graphic designer and animator from Paris, France. He is also the art director for the record label Ed Banger Records, allowing him to have direct visual input on the records’ visual image to the listeners. He has also created a multitude of videos Kanye West, Kid Cudi and many other renown musical artists. CoolCats is also a clothing company in which he is the main designer of. Within 2010, Armand van Helden’s new music alias ‘Duck Sauce’ saw the release of his song ”Barbara Streisand”, de Langeron directed the music for the 2010 soundtrack, but also making a cameo in the process.
Portraits Created by So Me
de Langeron began promoting his own hobby of creating portraits of people, in which he began making a business of. These portraits appear to have a strong vectored quality to each piece, with solid block fill colours, usually primary in nature. By doing so, precise minimal details are not created by a general idea of the facial structure of the person and their clothing is achieved. Although appearing simplistic, this style of vectored portraits became much of his basis for his current design styles with album art work and record label designs. The simplistic nature of the artwork however, is provided visual depth with the supporting typography in which the character is surrounded by. The solid black fill of the typeface also not only contrasts with the white background but allows the portrait to be aligned centrally as the centre of focus. The typeface appears to be a hand drawn or custom typeface, in which was vectored then placed within the design piece.
Further Record Label & Album Artworks
de Langeron vector styles continue to be seen across much of his works, as the album artwork for Kanye West;s ‘Always be Alone’ also consists of the vectored/animated style in which it primarily consists of solid colour tones. The typographic elements appear to be set as a bold sans-serif style to grip the viewer’s attention immediately with a primary yellow colour tone and solid white and pink fills. de Langeron’s style of hand drawn and vectored typeface is also strongly present within both pieces, further applying to the overall ‘animated’ and ‘cartoon’ visual appearance of each piece, due to the vectorisation of all graphic elements present in each piece.
Theory & Practice: Graphic Design Heroes 