Story
Some time have passed between playing with my first small bricks of color and becoming a Product Designer, I wanted to share anecdotes and funny stories you may find interesting.
Available soon…
Electricity
Since my first portfolio on October 2016, I began building my universe around one thing that kept my attention since I was a child: cities and their energy, using the symbols of light in physics and flash.
Available soon…
Moodboard
Maybe the more visual way to dive into my universe, you may find superabundance of references of color palettes inspired by Piet Mondrian, typography compositions and physics symbols.
How I work + Curriculum vitae
I make and verify hypothesis by creating and breaking solutions again and again until reaching users’ delight and company’s vision.
Started from the bottom the original problem(s) and make sure we try to tackle the correct one(s) is essential to make sure we provide efficient solutions to users and businesses.
Also, I always try to find a great balance between following the chosen methodology and keeping velocity and efficiency through the entire journey.
Specify, Product Designer
Sept. 2021 - Now (1.5 year)
Building features for Specify's platform, Command-Line Interface (CLI), and API.
Maintained and contributed to our design system. Experimenting with how automation and code can help design system and product teams, most recently with Notion and Figma Widget's APIs.
Source, Product Designer
Jul. 2018 - Aug. 2021 (3.5 years)
Built products and experiences while partnering with in-house designers, engineerings, PMs, researchers, and executives. Evangelized concepts of design ops and design systems with best practices, processes, and tools.
Clients: Abu Dhabi Executive Office, Banque Populaire, BNP Paribas, Warner Bros., Wabel, and Dassault Systèmes.
Freelance, Product Designer
Jan. 2018 - Now (5 years)
I am providing value to early and mid-stage companies through product design services and design system expertise.
Synerg' hetic, Design Consultant
May. 2018 - Nov. 2018 (1.5 year)
I implemented design methodologies to the global positioning of the Junior Company while working closely with startups around minimum viable products and ideation workshops.
8
industries where I had the chance to help users and companies with Source: cinema, bank, finance, institutions, initiatives, branded content and 3D softwares.
Clients include:
Dassault Systèmes, Abu Dhabi, Warner Bros., Indépendants.co, Getfluence, Banque Populaire, BPCE, BNP Paribas and more
35
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projects over the last 4 years
About me as a human
“I believe in the process but even more in the connections we build and strenghten along the way between companies, teams and end-users, all as humans.”
My name is Yann-Edern Gillet. I’m a French designer living in Paris, France. My main area of focus today is on systems, digital products and interfaces. DMs are opened!
But let’s forget work for two seconds. In my spare time I still spend a lot of time on screens but more as a Front-End Engineer.
I love learning new things, especially with Vue, Nuxt and GSAP. More recently I’m learning the craft of icon design (yup, the ones you saw earlier are born on my computer). I like the idea of crafting myself every pixel of my creations, both in design and code, like this portfolio.
When my hands are not on my mechanical keyboard, I enjoy taking care of my plants, cook/ try some italian recipes with my girlfriend and building LEGO sets.
To relax, I dive into work of others designers and developers, thanks to Standards Manual, Increment and Offscreen.
I’m also a huge fan of Hip-Hop culture and music. Even if I listen to a lot of US / UK rappers, french rap is deeply anchored in my head + easier to understand as a french person of course. I created playlists for each of my mood, feel free to give it a try!
Quick facts
Here are some anecdotes and quick facts about my debuts and my current life, both as a human and a product designer.
Quick fact #
001
Started practicing visual design with themes for jailbreaked iPhones at 11 years old
And it was a real mess at first, as I didn’t know anything about icons or interface design. But with time and practice, I felt in love with all the possibilities Cydia (more or less an AppStore for jailbreaked iPhones) offers for designers and developers as me.
I started my journey with Photofiltre Studio X, then downloaded a hacked version of Photoshop CS5 to be able to follow the community tutorials on masking, shadows and other effects... As I was too young to have a PayPal account, I had to ask my mother to create one to publish my first paid theme on this hidden marketplace.
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Quick fact #
004
Hip-Hop listener
My favorite french rappers are: Alpha Wann, Népal, Nekfeu, Fixpen Sill, Josman and Triplego. And for the U.S., I enjoy listening to Kid Cudi, ScHoolboy-Q, Kendrick Lamar, Mobb Deep and Joey Bada$$ songs.
I would love to know what's your favorite ones and discover new bangers or artists, let me know on Twitter!
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Quick fact #
007
Big fan of David Fincher's work
I watch and rewatch again and again a lot of his movies, especially Fight Club (one of my favorite), The Social Network, and House of Cards. Among all the commonalities of his works, what I particularly appreciate is his talent for telling a story, very often tinged with drama and crime.
From a more technical point of view, I appreciate his control of his scenes, his deep sense of detail, and his compositional choices in every movie.
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Quick fact #
010
Learned perspective while drawing NYC’skyscrapers from Spider-Man movies at 8
New York City landscape was ideal to learn how to draw realistic lines while imagining new stories for this superhero.
As these skyscrapers tend to be very repetitive, I often only draw the last five floors and use the remaining space of my A4 sheet for a pose of Spider-Man.
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Quick fact #
002
Never stopped playing with LEGO® bricks
In fact, I continue to play while being in high-school, in university and then college, from City, Star Wars or Mars series to my current Architecture collection, these little bricks help me to stay away from the screen every once in a while.
I’m not a huge collector anymore but I’m still obsessed with certain pieces and I’m always trying to find good excuses to buy some kits.
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Quick fact #
005
Started code with .ini plugins for Windows Vista
After falling in love with the Apple ecosystem with my first iPod, I searched for a way to mimic OS X Lion's appearance with the dock, clean desktop, top status bar, and everything.
A way to achieve that on my PC was to use "Universal Theme Patcher", download some plugins, and tadaaa, here we are a customOS X on my old Vista machine.
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Quick fact #
008
Wrote an essay on design systems in 2018 during my 4th year of study
During 6 months, I had the chance to interview Brad Frost and Koen Bok as well as designers at Source and dig in design systems and their impacts, on product teams and end-users.
Since then, I developed a strong interest for design operations, systems and APIs, inspired by the work of Benjamin Wilkins, Diana Mounter, Dan Eden, Matthew Ström, Jina Anne, Nathan Curtis, Tatiana Mac, Yesenia Perez-Cruz, and Josh Mateo.
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Quick fact #
011
Learned to draw while reproducing 151 first Pokémons
When I was a kid, around 7 or 8yo, and get my first cartridge of Pokémon Yellow with my best friend Pikachu, my father taught me how to draw. I remember to hang each new design on the kitchen wall and plan our next drawing session.
Discovering and learning each evolution stage of these adorable monsters was one of my first obsessions, like many others kids for sure.
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Typefaces
Headlines are set in Bluu Suuperstar, designed by Jean-Baptiste Morizot for Black Foundry. Copy is set in GT America, designed by Noël Leu with Seb McLauchlan for Grilli Type.
Stack
Initially born inside Sketch in 2019, raised inside Figma in 2020/2021. Re-built inside Framer in 2022. Previously hand-coded with Nuxt, Vue, Anime, GreenSock, and other cool librairies.
Inspirations
I'm working on a dedicated place to share more about my inspirations while working on this space, if you are interested in learning more about it, feel free to send me a message on Twitter.