Laurie leafing through a wood type specimen book with large red and black letterpress letters

Credibility through detail

Laurie Mahé Desportes

I design the graphic elements that make fictional worlds believable.

I am fascinated by the details that make a story believable. In film, theme parks and immersive experiences, it is often the elements you barely notice that make a world feel like it really exists.

My work is less about creating a visual identity than about building that evidence. A newspaper lying on a table, a folded map in a drawer or an aged poster on a wall often says more than a long description. Every element is designed as if it belonged to a real environment. Documentary research, historical references and production constraints are an integral part of my process.

Over the years, I have worked with game studios, licensed attractions, publishers, agencies and cultural institutions, on projects developed with Netflix, Warner Bros., DC Comics and Ubisoft, among others.

Today, I focus on projects where every graphic detail is a storytelling element in its own right.

Laurie looking at shelves of antique bound registers and archive boxes in a historical library

The details tell the story.