Whoam I?
21 July 2026
Diary
3 min read
For the past three days, I’ve been tethered to Codex, trying to communicate a little about my work. Okay, “tethered” might not be the exact word, but after three days talking to a machine about the best way to explain who I am, it doesn’t feel entirely wrong either.
Communicating about my work isn’t exactly a passion of mine. For one thing, I haven’t had a website for about fifteen years… And I live in Besançon, not Paris… Anyway, I’m using my holiday :'( to get on with it, with the enthusiasm of someone who has managed to postpone the job for fifteen years.
I thought I was simply putting together an up-to-date portfolio. A few projects to sort through, images to track down, and two or three bits of copy for my friend GePeTo to write. But the first question arrived immediately: who am I? Well, no. At my age, the question quickly becomes: what have I become?
For nearly thirty years, whenever someone asked what I did, I would say graphic designer, motion designer or director, depending on the current levels of hype or misery. At least I knew what to say. I develop projects, direct films and create images, but I also build workflows, write prompts and direct AI systems. I can now produce sequences on my own that, a few years ago, would have required a full team.
On paper, that’s fairly good news. On LinkedIn, it’s harder to squeeze into a single sentence that doesn’t read like HR’s top five bullshit job titles piled into one.
One person, several roles.
Is it a question of headcount or production capacity? If one person can do the work of several, are they still a freelancer, or simply a studio whose entire staff occupies the same chair?
Calling myself a “studio” feels a little pretentious, but continuing to describe myself as just a pair of hands is beginning to look like false modesty. Graphic designer, director, art director, production studio: all of these labels are accurate at certain moments. None tells the whole story.
I don’t think I’m the only one in this situation. Many creative professions are probably losing their old job titles before they have found new ones. And the timing is not ideal, since working on how you present yourself means choosing the right words to explain what you do.
A name for what comes next.
The website was meant to help me present what I do. So far, it has mainly taught me that I no longer know what to call it.
At least that’s content.