On the occasion of the 12th edition of the International Design Biennial of Saint-Étienne, the competition “A tramway named Design” was organized. Nicolas Mars and Thomas Dutoit, students at the Saint-Étienne School of Art and Design are the winners of this edition. The competition gathered 47 candidates from France but also from foreign countries.
This is the third edition of this competition. The theme is “Bifurcations”, which inspired them a lot “We wanted to highlight bifurcations and for that we had to show itineraries, pathways. For this, we decided to work on a cellular automaton which evolves with others, in colonies, shares a territory and leaves behind them, in their path, marks. Then, when we export the visual, what appears is a photograph of their stroll“, explains Nicolas Mars.
A white background and many colors
It is this wandering that we find on this new tramway. There are vertical, horizontal stripes, squares, triangles. All on a white background. “It’s a bias. A white tram is quite rare. The white represents the territory”says Thomas Dutoit. Each graphic element has a defined color. The horizontal stripes are purple, the verticals are green, the triangles are yellow and the squares are red. All of this _represents a map._“